The Traditional Ruler-elect of Iho-Dimeze Autonomous Community in Ikeduru LGA of Imo, Dr. Martins Amaku, has advised farmers to embark on aggressive food production in order to withstand the biting economy. The monarch while giving cash support to several farmers in his community described them as the engine room of food sufficiency and urged them to utilise the fund to help the situation. The cash gift, according to him, was to enable the farmers and widows to procure seedlings and farm inputs in order to embark on aggressive farming at least at the subsistence level to enable them to feed their families.
He said, ” In the past, various small scale farmers had received plantable tubers of yam, improved cassava stems, maize, coco yam and other seedlings alongside cash to help them in the years’ farming season in order to put food on the tables of their families.” The monarch-elect said that the current hunger was caused by the negative attitude of the authorities to agriculture over the years. He said, “You can see how hunger is ravaging our people due to the economic situation. And I tell you, we are in this ugly situation because governments and individuals, especially those in the rural areas, neglected agriculture and were chasing after raw cash by every means.”
He expressed regrets that the mad rush for easy money was the cause of “ the unimaginable high cost of food items” in the country. He lamented further that Nigerians neglected the opportunity given them by God to have arable land for the cultivation of “bountiful produce” and embraced white collar jobs instead, while the leaders got carried away by the resources from crude oil. He, however, said that hope is not lost yet, as he believes that Nigeria can still get it right. Hear him: “It is not too late, and mind you, Igbos are known to be industrious and productive. We should all go back to agriculture to produce food in large quantities as it was in the past.”
He appealed to wealthy members of the society to assist farmers by getting them farming materials, seedlings and other inputs like fertilisers, so that the challenges of the farmers can be lessened. His gesture was a way of encouraging other people to rally round farmers in this regard.
A total of 340 women-farmers and 150 widows benefitted from the traditional ruler -elect’s initiative.
