Oluwatomi Olatoye, an urban agriculturist, in this interview with NURUDEEN ALIMI, shares detailed information on how Nigerians can make use of urban agriculture to make food available for themselves and ways by which government and private sector can contribute hugely to the development of agriculture in Nigeria. Excerpts:
What is urban agriculture all about?
Urban agriculture means farming in the city. You know, when it comes to agriculture, everybody thinks I have to go to my village; I have to go to the rural environment to farm. But when it comes to urban agriculture, it is growing things in the urban area. We can grow plants, we can raise animals, we can do aquaculture, that is raising of fish, in the urban setting. It means that I can have my farm in my compound I do not need to travel to the farm. The beauty of urban agriculture is you planting where you are.
How seamless can this process be?
Urban agriculture is also about creativity because when it comes to urban setting, the first thing that comes to your mind is that there is no space. But I want to tell you that there are spaces. We have unused land, we have lands that people bought that they are not using. So, when it comes to urban agriculture, you have to open your eyes to look for the space and when you get the space then you begin to cultivate. But in a situation whereby you do not have space that is land to farm, there are other things that you can use to farm. Like I said, it is all about creativity. You can grow things in sacks, you can grow things in old tyres, pet bottles and any other thing that can hold soil to plant. So, urban agriculture is not limited to land alone. It is you making use of things to grow your food. I can have my yam in a sack, I can have my sweet potato in sack, I can have my pepper in a container. If you have buckets and kegs you are no longer using, you can cut them and plant in them. So it is very easy to plant in the urban area.
What is OBE about?
OBE started two years ago in Ondo State. And the concept of OBE is to encourage people to grow everything that they need for soup. We realise that in the African setting, particularly in Nigeria, when there is soup at home, there is food but when there is no soup there is no food. It means that soup is a major thing in the meal of an African family. So, we now came up with the concept that if soup is important to every household, let us teach every household on how to grow all the ingredients that they need to cook soup. What are those ingredients? They are: tomatoes, rodo, shombo, etc. You also need to spice your food and doing this you need efinrin, which is commonly referred to as scent leaf. You need to put meat and other things to make the soup delicious.
So, under OBE, we will teach you all the things that you need to cook that soup. We will teach you how to plant your tomatoes, rodo, shombo and other items. We will also teach you how to plant the spices. You know some of us use artificial seasoning to cook. But we are encouraging people to embrace the use of natural spices. For instance, we are going to introduce people to natural spices that they can use to cook such as curry plant. We will also teach them how to plant ginger and turmeric. You need ginger, garlic and turmeric to cook your food. You also need onions. Before now, we used to think onions cannot grow in the South-West. But for the past three years, people in the South-West have been growing onions. So, part of the things that we teach under OBE is how you can grow your onions.
So, at the end of the day, you do not need to travel to buy things to cook soup. Once you have everything in your backyard you just go there pluck those things and cook your soup. And some people will be asking if I cook the soup, where do I get my protein? Can I put cow in my compound? No, you cannot put cow in your compound, but there are mini livestock that you can raise in your OBE garden such as snail. You can have a small snail pen, you can do poultry by getting broilers and raise about 10. You can also do fish such as catfish or tilapia in a small container; you can put your catfish there. Some of the leftover food that you throwaway, you can give it to your animals to feed them. So, at the end of it all you have a total soup garden consisting pepper, vegetables, spices and your protein. That is what OBE concept is all about.
How will you convince women to embrace agricultural practice?
I want to charge every woman to have a garden. As the cook of the house, a woman should have a soup garden, because if you do not have, it means that you will be going to the market every day. You might not be able to grow everything that you need, but you can grow some. You know petrol is now expensive, for you to travel from your house to the market maybe you will spend up to N1,000 on transportation and you need to buy okro of N200, does that makes sense? So I am encouraging every woman you must have OBE garden, so from there, you can pluck ewedu, okro, ugu for cooking. Everybody must have OBE garden in Nigeria and I strongly believe this is possible.
As an agricultural expert, what are those things that need to be done in order to achieve food security in Nigeria?
I think there are so many little things that are very important that we can do to achieve food security. Number one, we must know that it is possible for us to achieve food security. We have the land resources, the climatic condition is favourable to farming. For instance, if we can achieve food security in the South-West, we can achieve it in the whole of Nigeria. The first thing I always like to tell people in government is land clearing. Land clearing is a major factor. I remember when I started agriculture, I spent a lot of money to clear a five-acre of land. It was a lot of money; a poor farmer cannot afford that. Young people who want to farm cannot afford it. So, let there be massive land clearing and allocation. It is not that you will clear and you leave it. If I am clearing land for people in Ido Local Government, you already have farmers who you will allocate the cleared land to. You will see that when lands are cleared, a lot of people will go to the farm.
Number two: Availability of farm inputs. Government can subsidise farm inputs. In every part of the world, government subsidises inputs. If you leave inputs in the hands of the private sector, farmers will not be able to afford them. We are looking forward to a situation whereby government can subsidise inputs. If I am to buy tomatoes for N5,000, if I get at N1,000 at the Ministry of Agriculture, I can use that money to buy five packs instead of buying just one.
Number three is the market. If we have organised market and a farmer is aware that if I produce my cassava I can take it to the market and they will buy it from me, I will grow more yams. So, we need more of those organised market where farmers can take their produce to. Farmers can also help put together farmers’ market so that every weekend if a farmer knows that if he or she takes his or her produce to the farmers’ market, people will buy. Therefore, organised markets will help farmers to increase productivity leading to food security.
In what ways do you think the private sector can contribute to the development of agriculture in Nigeria?
In the past 10 years, the private sector has been actively pushing the agricultural sector in Nigeria; I can say that boldly. A lot of investments have gone into agriculture, a lot of innovations are coming, young people are coming up with laudable innovation, a lot of smart agriculture are being introduced. I know that they are doing a lot and they can do more.
When it comes to organised market, the young people can really help; e-commerce can help agriculture. I know some e-commerce platforms where you only need to tell them I have garri and the buyer will just get in touch with you. The organised market can also help with post-harvest losses. I realised that a lot of things produced in the rural market get spoilt before they get to the market.
Some get spoilt after getting to the market because there are no agro-processing hubs. Private people can invest in agro-processing hubs. Agro-processing hub is a place where you can process some excess produce. Let us use tomatoes for example, when you go to Shasha market in Ibadan, you will find out that some tomatoes will rot and will be thrown away. Instead of throwing them away, you take them to agro-processing hubs, they will dry it and turn it into tomato powder. You can do that for all our produce, you can do that for fruits as well. If you have orange and you did not sell everything at the market, take some orange to the agro-processing hub, they dry for you and it becomes another product and those dry products are exportable.
So the private sector can actually be involved in the establishment of agro-processing hub in all the local governments across Nigeria.
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