Plateau State Governor, Lalong
By Raymond Gukas, Jos
“Plateau Our Heritage” (POH), has decried Nigerian leaders’ attitude towards the development of the agricultural sector, noting that there was no tangible efforts on the part of government to lift peasants out of subsistence agriculture in the face of the industrial age.
This was the position of the socio-cultural group in its platform, when it brought out issues affecting agriculture in regards to the COVID-19 pandemic, where it was observed that the future of the economy in the current period was agriculture.
Chairman of the group, Alex Kwapnoe while closing discussions on the role of agriculture, pointed out that the global economy is lifting peasants out of the native Agricultural age towards the industrial age, “but naked greed being exhibited by our leaders [in Plateau] since Lar (Solomon Lar) will not do us any good.”
As a result, he emphasised that “we need governments fist and direction to join the agricultural race” adding that the POH was ever ready to partner in that direction.
Contributing in the discussion, Valentine Rotgak also blamed the people for looking down on agriculture; perhaps for it requires attention, a situation they can’t provide.
He said, “the reason Plateau [state] will not be better than tomorrow is that, everyone seams to be educated and no one is ready to sercums to the nature” as he reminded further that states created out of Plateau are doing better agriculture wise.
But to take the bull by the horn, convener of the POH, Pam Ayuba Dangwong assured the house that the platform was working on the constitution of an agricultural development committee which will be saddled with the responsibility of harnessing the agric potentials of the state; ranging from farming, fishing, poultry and others, which are just waiting to be explored giving the right atmosphere.
Aside the foregoing, Yakubu Taddy tasked the POH to form a “cooperative and empower our members. Groups should be beyond meetings but also creating economic blocks to respond to the yearnings and aspirations of members.”
Another lucrative aspect of agriculture that remained untapped was fisheries. The state which boast of fresh waters has in addition, abandoned tin mining ponds that are still yet to be reclaimed and these could be converted into dams.
Instead of these numerous ponds that have remained a source of concern to the people because of the dangers they pose, they remained viable sources for fish ponds, Professor Danladi Matawal opined.
He stressed that the “presence or absence of Water especially for Irrigation is critical to the success of Agriculture. Some of the Land Grabbing Wars [state is experiencing] are tied to presence of fresh water and large Tin mining ponds in the corridor between Bokkos, Barkin Ladi, Mangu, Riyom and even Jos South local governments.”
We can harness Tin Mining ponds which have perennial water presence to produce enough fish for the state’s needs and even exports.This is in addition to use of these water for dry season irrigation” especially as water resources is critical to crop production and foodstuff can be produced all year round.
The scholar further noted that “at the moment, we have at least two cycles of production of potatoes. But the absence of water is fast diminishing the capacity of farmers in the dry season. So we need large earthdams in some areas and small earrhdams in others.
“Large dams can be used for irrigation, fish farming and micro electricity generation of up to 2-3 MW per dam so that some LGAs can harness enough power for themselves and even export excesses if we also establish solar and wind farms.”
V. Kuchili agreed with this position in which he acknowledged that the possibility of turning the “ponds to fish farms…with the country in shortage of needed fish…we could turn our state to fishing producing state…the possibility of different species could be explored.”
Chalya on the other hand, thought it better to engage state and federal governments owned agricultural establishments in the state, especially state’s College of Agriculture, University of Jos agriculture faculty and others “to develop the long term goals for human resources and research needed in the sector.”
The state known for its vegetable products, also requires attention in the area of storage as this will reduce wastage on the part of irrigation farmers who continue to suffer losses due to the perishable nature of produce.
