NIGERIA SHOULD GO BACK TO HER FIRST LOVE ;AGRICULTURE - - AFE BABALOLA
The founder, Afe Babalola University, Aare Afe Babalola (SAN), has called on Nigerian leaders to see agriculture as the surest way out of the current economic recession the country 8s going through.
He condemned the abandonment of Agriculture after the discovery of oil and said that the agriculture would create a lot of jobs and bussiness opportunities in the country.
Afe Babalola who made the statement in Ado-Ekiti recently stressed that, ‘for Nigeria to overcome the present economic problems, we must add business to agriculture. We need to develop our own technology, improve our own farming practice, innovate, invent and create massive and robust markets for our unique African agricultural products’.
“Before the advent of oil, Nigeria was self-sufficient in many things. We made good money from agricultural products. Our Naira was stronger than the British pound and the American Dollar. But after the oil discovery in Oloibiri in 1956, we abandoned that all-important income earner in favour of oil. Now, the price of oil has gone down in the international market. But there is a way out: we should go back to our first love; agriculture. I believe the time has come for Africa to reclaim its economic power through agriculture”, he advised.
Proffering solution to the economic crisis, Babalola added: “Let us stop exporting our raw agricultural products, let us encourage value chain production and retailing of such. Enough of all the big retail chains carrying 95 per cent foreign agriculture-based products, let us give them the benefit of stocking our well processed and packaged products”.
He condemned the abandonment of Agriculture after the discovery of oil and said that the agriculture would create a lot of jobs and bussiness opportunities in the country.
Afe Babalola who made the statement in Ado-Ekiti recently stressed that, ‘for Nigeria to overcome the present economic problems, we must add business to agriculture. We need to develop our own technology, improve our own farming practice, innovate, invent and create massive and robust markets for our unique African agricultural products’.
“Before the advent of oil, Nigeria was self-sufficient in many things. We made good money from agricultural products. Our Naira was stronger than the British pound and the American Dollar. But after the oil discovery in Oloibiri in 1956, we abandoned that all-important income earner in favour of oil. Now, the price of oil has gone down in the international market. But there is a way out: we should go back to our first love; agriculture. I believe the time has come for Africa to reclaim its economic power through agriculture”, he advised.
Proffering solution to the economic crisis, Babalola added: “Let us stop exporting our raw agricultural products, let us encourage value chain production and retailing of such. Enough of all the big retail chains carrying 95 per cent foreign agriculture-based products, let us give them the benefit of stocking our well processed and packaged products”.
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