Agriculture it is!

Yes! Our beloved Nigeria a case study. Let us look back a before that blessed 1956, before Oloibiri got into our history books, before the large multinational oil conglomerates decided to camp and mount their tents in this country and let their real structures dwell and there country of origin, before CRUDE OIL a.k.a liquid gold was discovered.

Groundnuts, cocoa, cassava, oil palm, rubber and more were our major foreign exchange source. Nigeria was at its best and these agricultural products and farms - subsistence and commercial flourished. Behold the oil was found and the agriculture was rejected, tuned and turned off, forgotten and neglected. Every attention wound into the oil sector and its reserves, loots became increased, agriculture became obsolete and "bizarre."

Fast forward to 2010, the oil is still booming. Sorry I forgot to mention that there was an oil boom period into those 1970s. Did I just say booming? But why will this neglected agriculture still account for the highest earning for Nigeria, I mean 41% of our GDP. Our lovely "liquid gold" gave us a mere 16%; less than half that of agriculture. Mind you agriculture got no funding, no nothing. Our real sector (manufacturing) contributed a paltery 4%. This is indeed sad I might say. Well a topic for another day.

If sincerely we all (I do not mean those in high positions but everyone of us) should ask ourselves how we have fared in this regard, its result will read a mass failure. We have failed agriculture in this land, we have failed the true contributor to the economy, we have failed to provide food for generations to come.

Nonetheless, I will mention efforts by certain organizations, few states and the large rural subsistence farmers to revive this sector but I really think more need be done. Lets support to reach sufficiency in food production and run towards actualizing part of our MDGs.

God bless Nigeria!