Agricultural funding is one of the major factors that must be considered and dealt with if the young and aspiring farmers must embrace agricultural possibilities. Imagine if football was handled globally as it is in Nigeria without proper funding as compared to the western countries, do you think football would be given special priorities as it is today? Most definitely not, because then there won’t be a beautiful and well-designed stadium, players will be underpaid, there would be poor health insurance and what about the cost of traveling for away matches?

If one-tenth of the resources invested in sports by any country is put in any other aspect of the economy, it would eventually bring about economical development, now imagine investing that worth in agriculture which is the most basic source of human existence.

In years past, football depended greatly on goal-line technology for decisions over controversial circumstances, but still there was dissatisfaction in its judgment which led to the research, development, and use of the Video Assistant Referee. This was immediately adopted and legalized for use in all football games because of adequate funding. But in the Agricultural sector, even with very good sophisticated equipment that could make farming and production of farm produce faster and easier, the cost of purchasing one of the equipment might mean that a farmer has to sell all his lands to buy the equipment meanwhile the farmer might be needing a combination of the farming equipment. But the question would now be if the farmer sells his lands to buy the farming equipment, where would the equipment be used?

In view of the above, the government, local and international investors can leverage the efficiency and efficacy of the machines based on the certainty of high returns from the improved farm produce. Imagine the time taking for manual labor to complete a particular agricultural task compared to what a machine will do, imagine the number of damaged products that could have been saved by the machines if they were available. Nobody wants to sow, maintain and harvest at the end of the farming period with a loss which is why most young people and aspiring farmers and agriculturists would rather look for a safer and cheaper path to trade instead of farming which would generate higher income.

The need for Agricultural Funding can never be overemphasized because Agricultural produce is indeed the source of human development and the outcome or returns on adequate funding and investment would definitely be multiples of the capital.

Kindly share your thoughts in the comment section below. Do you think Funding has been a problem with Agriculture in Nigeria? What do you think needs to be done to curb this problem?  Join the conversation as Cellulant hosts its inaugural AgriConnect Summit themed ‘Youth Employment in Nigeria: What Agriculture Can Learn from Sports’.  

We will also be discussing more topical issues concerning agriculture and its impact, opportunities, and how youths can plug in to create value for themselves, The Summit is a monthly event featuring Industry leaders. Click the link below to register.

www.agriconnect.ebentbrite.com