The universities and the farmers

NATURALLY, man is a most purposeful producer of his needs. Water and food are the most basic needs of man and his essential wants are food, shelter and clothing. Following scavenging, man discovered agriculture or farming as his first major occupation for the production of his needs. That is to say, man’s first main occupation has been farming specifically for the production of the foods he eats. Also, byproducts of agriculture provide the materials for the construction of his house, for the making of his clothing and the herbs for the treatments of his health challenges. Hence, man meets his basic needs from his efforts in farming. The regularity of man’s productivity in farming depends on the robustness of his health which, in turn, determines his strength and his energy to carry out his tasks as a farmer. The quality and the level of the working of man’s mind determines the type and the quantum of the yields of his products. The degree of the level of the development of man’s mind also determines the fashion and the sophistication of the tools he would fabricate for his farming. Here comes the impact of the standards and the quality of the types of his education.

Primarily, for man, the object of production is consumption. Therefore, man is first and foremost the producer and the consumer. It is only when there are surpluses over and above his immediate needs that he keeps something apart for his secondary objective, which is to assist him in building the capital necessary for his future productions. In other words, it is after having enough for himself that man’s economic interests begin. It has been a well-recognized fact, therefore, that man, as an economic activist, is supposed to be the initiator, the innovator, the accelerator, the investor, the producer, the consumer, the exchanger, the distributor and the creator of his own needs and wants and, also, of the tools he uses to achieve them.  Nigerian peasant, representing some 80 percent of the population, still uses farming tools consisting of hoes and cutlasses which were fashioned in the shapes now variably prevalent in our different cultures since the global spread of iron roughly between the eighth and the fifth centuries before Christ. Any wonder, then, that the Nigerian Youths are not enthusiastic in undertaking the drudgery of using such archaic farm implements? And any wonder, therefore, that our people are now hungry and starving? And where are the impacts of the Nigerian educational systems, up to the University level, in all these deficits in the types of Nigerian farmers’ affordable tools and in the production innovations in agriculture that now make the farmers poverty-ridden and the citizenry hungry?

But are we saying that there are so many disconnects between the Nigerian universities and the Nigerian agriculture that our farmers are so incapable of feeding our nation? Just as the government collaborates with the investors to found computer villages in some cities, may I suggest that our educational institutions, together with the investors, should collaborate with every state to found farming villages in every local government with a view to attracting our young graduates into agriculture? The multiplier effects would result in the innovative fabrication of modern farming implements, in the illustration of practical demonstrations of the essence of academic institutions in using sciences, technologies and management techniques for the promotion of plenteous nutritional agricultural yields and in the attractiveness of business investments in profitable agro-allied industries among the generality of our society.

Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for being part of our University’s 76th Foundation Day Anniversary and of the 2024 Convocation Ceremonies; and, thank you for listening.

• Being remarks by Chief Adebisi Akande, CFR, as the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council, University of Ibadan, at the 76th Foundation Day Anniversary and 2024 Convocation Ceremonies of the University of Ibadan on 18th November, 2024.

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