Prices of food may continue to rise if… —Ogunnaike

CHAIRMAN, Folhope Limited, a company renown for integrated farming which includes livestock production, arable crop production, aquaculture among others, Chief Emmanuel Folorunsho Ogunnaike (MFR), has said that prices of food which have skyrocketed would continue the trend if necessary steps are not taken.

Ogunnaike, stated this while speaking with the Nigerian Tribune, on the occasion of Nigeria’s 60th independent anniversary. He noted that if government do not try as much as possible to empower farmers to aid food production, and also ensure their potection at all time, prices of foods which have gone extravagant would continue the unpapaltable trend.

He also posited that, to ensure food security, herdsmen must be compelled to embrace ranching so that their cattle would not continue to destroy farm produce.

Ogunnaike, also listed migration of West African herders as another factor militating against food sufficiency in the country, stating that the illegal migration must be stopped completely else, farmers would continue to suffer, thereby resulting into continued food shortage.

He further stated that if the ugly trend continues, indigenous livestock farmers would be sent out of business when the foreign herders might have been well-established and rooted.

He, however, urged farmers to continue to endure, saying: “Although there is a limit to human endurance but I appeal to them to continue to endure with the hope that after the darkness the glorious dawn will surely come.

“Let us hope the government will do the right thing at the right time to cushion the effect of the challenges the farmers are facing. In those days we have so many people who are involved in backyard farming, small scale farming all these have become things of the past and a drop of water make an ocean,” he said.