Adoption of mechanised farming is crucial to the advancement of agricultural practice in Nigeria.
Former provost, Federal College of Agriculture, Ibadan, Dr Babajide Adelekan, disclosed this while speaking with the Nigerian Tribune shortly after he delivered a paper during the second lecture series of the institution in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital recently.
He noted that: “Agriculture engineering is the sringborad of which Nigeria’s agriculture can reach its full potential. As of now, much of our agricultural production is still manual, you still see farmers using hoes, cutlasses and others to cultivate.
“You will agree with me that using these equipment cannot do much for the country when it comes to food production. It is just like a subsistence farmer using hoes and cutlasses, what he can produce as food can only be for himself and his immediate family members.
“But had it been that they could mechanise and we bring in tractors, other heavy duty farming equipments, bring in improved seeds and all that. You see, with scientific agriculture, farmers can actually produce food for as many as 100 people in a year. So, that is where agricultural engineering comes in.
“Agriculture will not really reach its full potential until there is widespread application of agricultural engineering and by doing that, we mean engaging tractors, farm implements, modern farming processes and using advanced knowledge for agriculture.”
While delivering the second lecture of the day, another former provost of the college, Dr Foluke Oluwatoyinbo, who presented her paper titled: ‘Harvesting success in manging soil and agricultural education:A story of rehabilitation and amelioration’ virtually, stated that soil acidity is widely recognised as one of the factors limiting crop yields in several areas of the humid tropics.
She said such soils cover about 18 percent of the total land area of Nigeria.
Oluwatoyinbo noted that the detrimental effects of soil acidity include high pH, low exchangeable cations and aluminium toxicity, all of which result in very low availability of essential plant nutrients from the soil and the release of toxic level of others such as aluminium and iron, ultimately resulting in very poor growth and yields or even total crop failure in many instances.
She posited that this has led to acute food shortage in such areas and its attendant negative impact on the health, social and economic life of the people. “Apart from poor and catastrophic crop yields, soil acidity restricts the types of crops that can grow and thrive in such places.” She noted.
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