It was Martin Luther King Jnr. who prescribed that those who intend to liberate themselves from any unwarranted situation must first appraise the history of the contemporary struggle, appreciate the circumstances of the present and then fashion out a sustainable strategy towards prosecuting the onerous task ahead. It was a long time when this interventionist observation was made to arouse optimism in people to realize their potential. Yet, more than a century after, we face encompassing challenges that have almost elevated the essence and value of the aforementioned statement to the status of near sacredness.
In today’s Nigeria, the youths who are the active part of the country’s population have come to the point where their spirit is dampened and their resolve to have faith in their country has been called to question. The reason: the promise of a better life has remained a mirage while roaming the streets even after empowering self with university degrees has become a necessary norm that should be accepted as the new way of life. Statistics on the irksome situation would startle any analyst!
Worse still, the failure of attempts by governments past in addressing the social menace has remained a phenomenon, almost of the class of climbing the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. The situation has continued to exacerbate and explode largely due to the complete absence of will and a workable policy that clearly articulates the thinking of government at the center in tackling youth unemployment in the country.
The subsisting stumbling block in the way of our federal government in showing leadership in answering calls by citizens for a new system that guarantees the integration and empowerment of Nigerian youths has remained the obsession and overdependence of our government on the returns from Nigeria’s crude oil. Rather than be a blessing, the discovery of oil in commercial quantity in Nigeria has constituted a curse to the growth and diversification of the economic base of the country.
From lazily depending on proceeds from the petroleum industry and becoming complacent and primitively preoccupying themselves with siphoning the common wealth of the Nigerian people, the political class in the country have, consciously or otherwise, removed hope in her future generations. Unemployment and youth unemployment looms large in the country despite its oil wealth and therein lays the potential for social instability at the least provocation.
However, in the midst of this seeming hopelessness, the present realization by our governments that time is fast running out on the petroleum sector has turned out to be the motivation to channel time and resources into alternative sources of individual and government revenue. In this renewed era of refocusing government and individual efforts on more sustainable mechanisms of addressing our national economic challenges, the need to look inwards and tow the path of Agriculture in our bid to expand and consolidate our evolving economy has taken the front burner.
Specifically for the vulnerable Nigerian youths who are desperately in need of windows of opportunity to effectively realize their potential, the presidential agricultural transformation agenda should be embraced in the context of leveraging on it to develop and empower themselves. Opportunities such as the recent presidential vigor should be explored to the latter.
In the meantime, the agricultural sector with its many aspects and opportunities should be patronized by all youths if they are in a hurry to improve their fortunes and lead fulfilled lives. At the moment, the rate of import duty on rice has gone up and all forms of waivers on the importation of rice have been removed. The potential for a country that depends greatly on rice as a staple food is that the policy is going to promote demand for locally produced rice and stimulate farmers to go into improved large-scale production of the staple food in other to attain self sufficiency.
Already, festivities in the December of last year have opened the eyes of many investment prospectors. The use of homegrown rice was on an all time high as governments and citizens patronized the food item even as the supply was hardly enough to meet the local demand for the agricultural produce. The implication is that more rice farming and processing firms are going to spring up to take business advantage of the situation. Young graduates can also have a pinch of the action by going into agricultural farming of rice as well.
Another area of immense benefits is the entrepreneurial raising of birds also called poultry farming. All that is needed is for the young farmer to summon courage and exude passion in engaging in the chosen business. In the poultry business, the business can be firmly rooted in the growing of pullets or chicks which are day-old chicks for other poultry investors. It can also be concentrated on growing of broilers for the all year chicken-meat market. Still, the poultry business can be sewn around the raising and nurturing of layers for the Nigerian egg market. Either way, poultry business remains a very profitable business when proper attention is giving to its operations even when undertaken fully or on a part time basis.
Livestock and fish farming also represent another venture opportunity that comes with its returns and prospects. Whereas the raising of goats, sheep, pigs, snails and cattle among others is profitable and easy to start, fish farming is almost as easy as drawing water from the well if one is passionate about venturing and breaking even in the business. The thin line between joblessness and success in agricultural businesses resolves around decision and passion.
The roll call can go on to involve lifetime investments like the growing of plantations such as cocoa, orange orchard, palm trees, mango trees and other fruit crops that have a standing demand owing to the nutritious value it represents in the diet of man.
Irrespective of the investment option adopted, it remains the position of professionals that investments in the sector are not exclusive and dependent on special skills. It begins with personal interest. Moreover, the consensus new thinking is that investments in a sector as promising as agriculture will serve to broaden our economic base and open a new vista of venture opportunities for many prospective entrepreneurs.
Agriculture as an investment option remains the way to go if we must brave the odds, stand up to the burgeoning economic challenges and key into the new window of opportunity advanced by governments at various levels. It will no longer pay any suitable youth to depend so much on qualifications in the midst of limited employment opportunities or fierce competition for rarely available job openings. Hence, the need for youths to have a rethink and consider the option of agriculture for self empowerment and actualization, even if it were to be employed on a transient basis.
Pursuant to this, young entrepreneurs venturing into agriculture must do so by first setting targets for themselves in the preferred aspect of agro-based business. And to harness the benefits available in this sector, the entrepreneur must be willing and ready to make conscious efforts in bringing innovation and zeal in the conduct of agricultural operations. He must attend to agriculture as though he were managing a blue-chip company with a management target of breaking even at the close of transaction.
Essentially, different levels of government have a role to play in making agriculture attractive to youths through policies, infrastructure and direct interventions aimed at engineering a robust dispensation of youths participating in the profitable business of agriculture. Nigerians have a proven proclivity to follow visionary leadership and it must be acknowledged that the herculean task of mainstreaming agriculture as an option for youth empowerment is a collective responsibility.
The business of agriculture is a timely intervention in the right direction. Luckily, Nigeria as a country is vastly blessed with opportunities in the sector that can fill the gap left by the over dependence on revenues from the petroleum sub sector of our country. Mainstreaming agriculture to take the center stage in the wave of new efforts to tackle youth unemployment and address our fledging economic quagmire is therefore the way to go. And governments as well as the youth must play their role.
