₦airaland Forum

So, yesterday a

Member representing Aguata Constituency in the Anambra State House of Assembly empowered constituents with branded wheelbarrows.

and a lot of people were mocking him asking why he could not provide them with better tools like tractors and so on.

I feel for most farmers, wheelbarrows, hoes and cutlasses are a lot more necessary compared to the other white elephant projects most 'educated' people were suggesting on that thread yesterday. And i have good reasons to support this.

For one: I grew up in the village where farming is our major source of income, food and everything else. So, not to sugar-coat anything; i have been a farmer for most of my life in the village and i can tell you that a tractor would not work.

for instance; most of us have our farmers scattered in different parts. small small lands here and there and every year we rotate the crops we plant on these lands.

to cultivate this small small lands with tractors will yield no benefits but increase the overall cost of farming for us. Tractors are efficient only when you are farming on a large scale and with a large expanse of lands. most of us dont have such lands.

2. Another reason why tractors will not work is because our farms are interconnected. most farmers piece of lands are surrounded by other farmers' piece of lands. much the same way as your house is surrounded by other houses. And no one would want tractors running through their farms with crops to go to another farmer's farm.

Most times when we go with Keke or Pickup truck to pack produce from our farms, we need to go with Big basins and sometimes wheelbarrows to pack the produce from inside our farms and carry them outside to the waiting Keke on the main road.

3. Farmers in the village are always renting wheelbarrows, hoes, cutlasses and Knapsack sprayers and this is the reality. Sometimes we have to wakeup as early as 4am in the village to go and rent wheelbarrows for N500 each before going to the farm and this is for my uncle who is already kind of well-to-do in the village because he is a government teacher now imagine for those old mamas and papas with no other source of income.

4. So for now, for most susbsistent farmers in nigeria, the best gifts any government officials can give to them are these tools. they dont require fueling, costly maintenance and they get the work done.

if you want to make the gift even better, add knapsack sprayers for spraying herbicides. Knapsack sprayers are notoriously out of reach for farmers but is a huge necessity. In the village, renting one for a whole day sometimes cost about N2,000.

5. Also, you can gift them fertilizers. Fertilizers despite the subsidy are still out of reach for most farmers. And it affects their yields. Most farmers buy in those milk cups and use spoons to apply them. Instead of applying the required quantity, they just add little to each ridges and heaps so it can reach the whole farm. This of course will reduce their yields but most don't care as long as they apply it to their whole farms.

I am saying this because it is very easy to mock others when we don't know what people actually needs.