I have noticed how self styled biafrans have invaded all the nigerian electronic and print media often boasting of their ingenuity in weapon design or mathematics while the other tribes are nothing but beggars and terrorists but the irony of the whole situation is that the east is fed today by the north they look down on. Igbo,efik,ibibio etc have all grown too lazy to grow their own food, the result is that any time there is crises upnorth, the prices of food stuffs in the east doubles two times, just by effecting a 30 months food blockade in the east during the civil war, millions died from starvation in biafra. I have no doubt that if all easterners should go back home and biafra declared, It will take only six months of food blockade to kill millions in biafra and they will still surrender with out nigeria firing a single shot. The east have enough landmass to feed it self. It have enough rainfall to farm through out the year without fear of crop failure due drought. For example, maize is grown two times a year in the east and while it's grown only once here in the north yet the east gets it's supply of maize from the north. Is farming a sin in the east or do they no longer have honour in honest labour? The anambra state goverment, a short while ago acquired large number of tractors for farmers free use and shared out an annual revolving loan of #100 million naira to rice farmers to booster rice farming only for the farmers to move to the cities with the money to set up shops as traders with no background knowledge what else in trading, the result is that most of them closed shop just after one year as traders and the loan was never repaid for other farmers benefit. This clearly demonstrates the warped mentality of the average easterner, looking down on agriculture as a career fit only for almajiris and aboki. The most puzzling thing is that the average igbo man or woman will always tell you that agriculture is a highly profitable business citing the high cost of food stuffs in the east as evidence yet him or her would never undertake it as a career. This lack of interest in agriculture is the reason why eastern cities are filled with armies of youths who unable to achieve their get rich quick targets resorts to crime and prostitution.what good is your talked about education if it can not put food on your table considering that food is the most basic need of man? The biafrans of today are clearly on a path  of self destruction if they should opt out of nigeria come the much prophesied year of 2015.( By east, i mean't the old eastern region and igbo speaking parts of delta and edo state)

Mr. Man. . .make your point without hammering on some tribalistic crap that has marred that country in retrogression for decades! If you wish to advise, then advise! If you wish to ask questions, ask but keep away the insinuations about the tribe, okay? When Nigerians stop poking fun at the other tribe and start respecting their differences, stop thinking that they are better than some other tribe but finding common ground can there be any meaningful progress!

Please poster I want to know how many igbos you are feeding. Since they are lazy, I guess you or your so called hardworking are the people feeding them. People just come nairaland and make a fool of themselves, maybe because nobody can see their faces

topic says : Why Is It That Igbo/easterners Are Too Lazy To Farm To Feed Themselves. now i don't agree with that they may not be involved for some reasons but they don't occur to me as lazy pple  not at all, and i think what u just highlighted applies to the whole of southern Nigeria.

@op u hv tried to the best of ur knowledge.if u hv d power to declare biafra pls do,in two mönths time all noutherners will turn beggars cus there will b no one to buy there farm produce , during the last sallah the so called northern farmers were begging for the people 4rm east nd west to buy their farm produce, wht can tell this? Am aware u also produce rice bt since 1996 i hv bin eating imported rice till date, so who consums dt of which u produce.

@cyberg, i'm not insinuating anything or being tribalistic , i'm just stating the fact as i see it so that underlying causes might be exposed. I only used the east as an because i lived and studied there for yrs and therefore have first hand experience of the massive surge in food prices each time there is crises in the north @ ebere. I never generalised igbos as being lazy because we all know your not, just that i can't understand why they fail to apply their well reputed education and enterprising nature to agriculture even when they are very much aware of the benefits derivable from it. I'm really sorry if i hurt ur feelings. @standing5  what u referred as some other reasons is what i'm trying to find out since this ppl have excelled in everyother aspect of life except agriculture. I'm personally trying to find out if hidden risks exist. Thanks for your mature reply

^^ You seem like you have good intentions but you know NL is always having one fight or the other and I just wanted to let you be wary of that. Some people will not read the rest of your post as soon as they see the topic and before you know it, another tribal fight starts which will not make anyone's life and tribes better in 10 pages time!?

@xtian. They were only begging them to buy rams which we know is not a meat of choice in the east, have u seen them begging them to buy goats? Also most of those rams were probable imported from chad or niger republic where prices are cheaper and does not mean that the north have more rams than they can sell

abouzaid:

I have noticed how self styled biafrans have invaded all the nigerian electronic and print media often boasting of their ingenuity in weapon design or mathematics while the other tribes are nothing but beggars and terrorists but the irony of the whole situation is that the east is fed today by the north they look down on. Igbo,efik,ibibio etc have all grown too lazy to grow their own food, the result is that any time there is crises upnorth, the prices of food stuffs in the east doubles two times, just by effecting a 30 months food blockade in the east during the civil war, millions died from starvation in biafra. I have no doubt that if all easterners should go back home and biafra declared, It will take only six months of food blockade to kill millions in biafra and they will still surrender with out nigeria firing a single shot. The east have enough landmass to feed it self. It have enough rainfall to farm through out the year without fear of crop failure due drought. For example, maize is grown two times a year in the east and while it's grown only once here in the north yet the east gets it's supply of maize from the north. Is farming a sin in the east or do they no longer have honour in honest labour? The anambra state goverment, a short while ago acquired large number of tractors for farmers free use and shared out an annual revolving loan of #100 million naira to rice farmers to booster rice farming only for the farmers to move to the cities with the money to set up shops as traders with no background knowledge what else in trading, the result is that most of them closed shop just after one year as traders and the loan was never repaid for other farmers benefit. This clearly demonstrates the warped mentality of the average easterner, looking down on agriculture as a career fit only for almajiris and aboki. The most puzzling thing is that the average igbo man or woman will always tell you that agriculture is a highly profitable business citing the high cost of food stuffs in the east as evidence yet him or her would never undertake it as a career. This lack of interest in agriculture is the reason why eastern cities are filled with armies of youths who unable to achieve their get rich quick targets resorts to crime and prostitution.what good is your talked about education if it can not put food on your table considering that food is the most basic need of man? The biafrans of today are clearly on a path of self destruction if they should opt out of nigeria come the much prophesied year of 2015.( By east, i mean't the old eastern region and igbo speaking parts of delta and edo state)

Did you live in urban or rural Igboland? You claimed you have lived in Igboland yet you question the ability of Igbos to farm? Do you now claim you do not see crops planted in the farms of the Igboland you lived in? If you saw crops in Igboland, who farmed them? Igbos? Hausa? Yoruba?

May I ask you if you have heard of Abakiliki rice and Yam? Have you heard of Bende Corn and Cocoyams? Did you not see plantain, Banana, orange, cashew, avocados, etc trees where you lived in Igboland? Did you not see hectares of cassava farms in Igboland? Did you not see hectares of oil palm trees in Igboland?

Can you mention the crops you northerners feed Igbos with other than tomatos and onions, and may be some yams?
Do you produce more rice in the North than in Igboland?
Do you produce garri at all in the far north?
Do you produce palm oil in the North?
The North no longer produces beans and even meat. They import these things from Niger and other WA countries and ship them South.

If you say Igbos do not produce enough to feed themselves, you are correct but that is due to insufficient land for mechanized, large scale farming. But does the North, the SW, and the SS produce enough to feed themselves despite the land available to them?

Why do we have more poverty in the North than in Igboland? You have all the land, what have you done with it?

What sort of useless claims are you making?

What is this nonsense?

When the North was threatening to cut off food supply, did you hear Igbos complaining?

I never heard of Northerners growing yam which is what an Igbo man needs to survive. We grow our own food.

The North only provides us with beef and we can live without it.

I swear some of my Igbo brothers need to stop negotiating with fools.

LOL. . .not 10 pages yet? The tribal fundamentalists and extemists are here! Oh well, make una enjoy una tribal party frenzy!

ba.stard op. on the average scale, the igbos are the richest in Nigeria. You hardly find an totally wretched igbo man.

lucenzo:

ba.stard op. on the average scale, the igbos are the richest in Nigeria. You hardly find an totally wretched igbo man.

ermm your comment has no bearing to what the op is talking about.

@cyberg, i have the antidote for a north vs east fight it's just i hope the yorubas won't cash in and derail the thread. My intentions is purely to seek information before deciding to either stay back in the north to invest in large scale storage of grains or to go down east to try my hands on commercial palm and plantain plantations. The north offers less return and less risk while the east is a practically uncharted territory agric wise but i'm in love with the east because it's a more ideal place to start a family even in a rural setting due to presence of quality schools for children even in the rural areas where as education is a joke here in the north. @nchara must everything be about tribal supremacy? I studied at nsukka and i saw low yielding wild palm trees not modern plantations with improved breed.most of what i saw as regards other crops were subsistence farms manned by old old folks because their children have all trooped to the city. Go to onitsha and u would those abakaliki and nsukka youths hawking gala rather than farming in their villages, this poor youths are also the ones more likely to engage in crimes or victimised by the onitsha police. Why can't they just go home and practise modern agriculture? And believe me the east have more than enough land to engage in modern mechanized agriculture. Nsukka is mostly thinly populated with a large mostly unoccupied jungle stretching from ninth mile diversion upto enugu ezike into kogi state. I know what i am talking about @Ezeuche my brother a large percentage of the yams consumed in the east is hauled in from the middle belt mostly from benue, taraba and niger states and it's nothing to be ashamed of since they get their palm oil from the east even though i have seen palm trees doing well in these states yet we too have failed to make use of it

abouzaid:

@cyberg, i have the antidote for a north vs east fight it's just i hope the yorubas won't cash in and derail the thread. My intentions is purely to seek information before deciding to either stay back in the north to invest in large scale storage of grains or to go down east to try my hands on commercial palm and plantain plantations. The north offers less return and less risk while the east is a practically uncharted territory agric wise but i'm in love with the east because it's a more ideal place to start a family even in a rural setting due to presence of quality schools for children even in the rural areas where as education is a joke here in the north. @nchara must everything be about tribal supremacy? I studied at nsukka and i saw low yielding wild palm trees not modern plantations with improved breed.most of what i saw as regards other crops were subsistence farms manned by old old folks because their children have all trooped to the city. Go to onitsha and u would those abakaliki and nsukka youths hawking gala rather than farming in their villages, this poor youths are also the ones more likely to engage in crimes or victimised by the onitsha police. Why can't they just go home and practise modern agriculture? And believe me the east have more than enough land to engage in modern mechanized agriculture. Nsukka is mostly thinly populated with a large mostly unoccupied jungle stretching from ninth mile diversion upto enugu ezike into kogi state. I know what i am talking about @Ezeuche my brother a large percentage of the yams consumed in the east is hauled in from the middle belt mostly from benue, taraba and niger states and it's nothing to be ashamed of since they get their palm oil from the east even though i have seen palm trees doing well in these states yet we too have failed to make use of it

it seems your intentions are good but your title does not seem to say so.

there is only one thing i have to add.most of those lands that seem unoccupied are owned by people or communities.you cannot just walk in there and start farming because it is 'empty'.you have to negotiate with them to acquire it

abouzaid:

@nchara  must everything be about tribal supremacy? I studied at nsukka and i saw low yielding wild palm trees not modern plantations with improved breed.most of what i saw as regards other crops were subsistence farms manned by old old folks because their children have all trooped to the city. Go to onitsha and u would those abakaliki and nsukka youths hawking gala rather than farming in their villages, this poor youths are also the ones more likely to engage in crimes or victimised by the onitsha police. Why can't they just go home and practise modern agriculture? And believe me the east have more than enough land to engage in modern mechanized agriculture. Nsukka is mostly thinly populated with a large mostly unoccupied jungle stretching from  ninth mile diversion upto enugu ezike into kogi state. I know what i am talking about   

Then limit your observation to Nsukka and environ. You have no clue about agricultural activities elsewhere in Igboland.

You may try asking what you do not know about, rather than asserting falsely. Thank you. Onitsha is an urban center, yes? How many farming activities go on in urban Nigeria?

When you travel to the North from Nsukka, do you not see the millions of hectares of land left uncultivated?
How many hectares of forests do you not see between Benin and Lagos?

http://www.nrcri.gov.ng/

If Igbos are not farming to the extent land availability allows, this agricultural research institute will not be sighted in Igboland

Check a map of Nigeria and tell me how much land is available to Igbos for large-scale farming.

What is the North doing with all the land you see in that map?

Do you agree that some of the food the North boasts with are actually imported from other WA countries?

Enugu boosts mechanized farming with 27 tractors worth N79m
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/06/enugu-boosts-mechanized-farming-with-27-tractors-worth-n79m/

Nchara:

Enugu boosts mechanized farming with 27 tractors worth N79m
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/06/enugu-boosts-mechanized-farming-with-27-tractors-worth-n79m/

guy you and i know that this gesture does not really mean much.

Read about land problem as relates to mechanized agriculture in Igboland. Here Imo was used as a case study

http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/108934/2/42eze_Konkwo_orebiyi_kadiri.pdf

@OP, laziness is not a word associated with the Igbos as a group/tribe at all.

I doubt very much that in your time in Igboland you saw able bodied adult men/women lazing about. You are actually wrong to conclude the fact that they may not be farming as lazy.

In fact, what is the issue with other parts of the country producing food for the rest, just like California does to the rest of the US?

Different does not equal wrong or inferior.

@ OP

They detest it not because of laziness, far from it

the psyche of the east is different from the north and also from the west

The average easterner does NOT want to be a farmer, It is seen as a poor person's job. This is not a bad thing and in fact in the east, it is believed that they HAVE to be rich thus farming is not concerned an option especially in the Igbo ethnic group.

alj_harem:

@ OP

They detest it not because of laziness, far from it

the psyche of the east is different from the north and also from the west

The average easterner does NOT want to be a farmer, It is seen as a poor person's job. This is not a bad thing and in fact in the east, it is believed that they HAVE to be rich thus farming is not concerned an option especially in the Igbo ethnic group.

I have to finally agree with you 

@ OP, you have a point but easterners are not lazy to farm, they don't have much interest in it because the processes you have to go thru are a bit too rigorous for them hence they tend to engage in activities where they'll see the result instantly.
However, many easterner are farmers. I hope more easterners will become farmers.

Obiagu1:


However, many easterner are farmers. I hope more easterners will become farmers.

Is there any Igbo family you know living in Igboland that do not have farmers amongst them? All Igbo families are farmers but most of them are subsistence farmers, farming to the extent that  their land holding allows.

The OP is crassly misinformed or blatantly ignorant about what he is generalizing

Obiagu1:

I have to finally agree with you 

@ OP, you have a point but easterners are not lazy to farm, they don't have much interest in it because the processes you have to go thru are a bit too rigorous for them hence they tend to engage in activities where they'll see the result instantly.
However, many easterner are farmers. I hope more easterners will become farmers.

Nwanne Obiagu, Nwa Ala Igbo 1

Yes those that go into farming are into sustainable farming aka garden farm and those are in the villages not really for cash crops.

Of course there is Abakaliki rice mill in Ebonyi

Nchara:

Is there any Igbo family you know living in Igboland that do not have farmers amongst them? All Igbos in Igbo families are farmers but most of them are subsistence farmers, farming to the extent that  their land holding allows.

The OP is crassly misinformed or blatantly ignorant about what he is generalizing

Nchara can you show me a link of the rice fields of which Abakaliki rice is produced from

I learnt it is rice mill rather than Farmland, I might be grossly wrong but I would like to be sure. Thanks

alj_harem:

Nchara can you show me a link of the rice fields of which Abakaliki rice is produced from

I learnt it is rice mill rather than Farmland, I might be grossly wrong but I would like to be sure. Thanks

Abakaliki is also the food basket of southern Nigeria. The city has been a leading producer of processed rice, yam, and cassava for decades. Newer technology recently introduced have enabled the modernisation of the city's rice mill complex for improved quality of rice processing. Following the creation of Ebonyi state in 1996 and its role as the administrative capital, the infrastructure and population of Abakaliki is ever on the increase. The huge incentives and tax holiday offered by Ebonyi state government to all major private investors have brought about a marked increase in new businesses in Abakaliki city. The city hosts a fertilizer blending plant. Abakaliki is also a haven of peace with little or no violent crime in the city. Abakaliki also hosts a Federal medical center, which has largely contributed to the affordability of public healthcare delivery in the city and the state. The Nkaliki poultry complex in Abakaliki is reputed to be among the largest poultry complex in the country. Just in the outskirts of the city lies one of the largest untapped limestone deposit zones in the country, measuring more than 2000 square kilometers. The Federal and state governments have recently granted licenses to private companies to establish cement companies within the area. In line with the Federal government economic reform programmes they have made the country self-sufficient in cement production.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abakaliki

Response to Economic Incentive by Abakaliki Rice Farmers in Eastern Nigeria

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1236333

Nchara:

Is there any Igbo family you know living in Igboland that do not have farmers amongst them? All Igbos in Igbo families are farmers but most of them are subsistence farmers, farming to the extent that  their land holding allows.

The OP is crassly misinformed or blatantly ignorant about what he is generalizing

I was actually not referring to subsistence farming. My understanding on what the OP meant was farming as an occupation to produce food in commercial quantity. My family used to have a farm in Enugu but we gave the land away to another farmer because the work was too stressful. Moreover, my parents were full time civil servants and farming was just to keep the farming tradition in the family going but we eventually gave up.

I have to admit, though, that many Igbo families are into subsistence farming, like you have stated, to the extent their land holding allows. Maybe, many would have gone into large scale farming if they have more lands.

ABAKALIKI RICE FARMER INCREASES YIELD, CREATES JOBS

http://www.nigeriamarkets.org/files/Nigeria%27s_Harvest_Vol_9_Ekha_Agro_Partnership.pdf

Many Woes of Rice Farmers

http://www.tellng.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=606:many-woes-of-rice-farmers