As expected, many Nigerians will participate in the 2022 farming season, beginning from March. This they do by, first, engaging in such preliminary activities as cutting the bush on proposed farmlands, allowing the cut grasses and felled tree-branches and general weeds to dry and going ahead to set fire on them to burn which will be followed by clearing the debris and other items that may not burn in the set fire.
In the villages, those who do not have their own farmlands usually rent such arable lands or lease them yearly from their neighbours and fellow villagers who have such farming lands that may be renewed from year to year.
Apart from preparing the land for the year’s farming activities, these farmers go ahead to procure farming inputs – be they fertilisers of various types, agro-chemicals, seedlings of yams, cocoa yams, okra, three-leafed yams, varieties of cassava stems, fluted pumpkin, pumpkin, and even the implements they will need and use in the process of farming and which may include cutlasses of different types, machetes, shovels, Indian and ordinary hoes, diggers, rain boots, raincoats and other personal protective equipment, et cetera in addition to fungicides, pesticides, herbicides and similar things that may be required to keep away weevils, termites, army warms, and many other insects that usually destroy the vegetables and other things that are planted in farms.
In other cases, many farmers may seek government assistance in many aspects including technical knowledge, improved varieties of the things that will be planted and financial, credit facilities that will enable them to engage in large-scale farming.
Whatever happens, however, it is important that those who will engage in one agricultural activity or the other in this year’s planting season should be ready by now, and should have finished with planning.
This is because, as the saying goes, ‘if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.’ Setting out a few hours of our time daily to put one or two things in order may be helpful in ensuring maximum yields and bountiful harvests later in the year. Farmers need to know when and how to apply fertiliser on their farm.
Others need to know when best to weed their farms in order to remove those weeds that usually compete with crops for soil nutrients such crops need to flourish.
Going into the 2022 farming season may include determining where and how to sell what will be harvested from our farms with a view to making profit. It may also include making arrangement for the storage of the things that will be harvested from the farms, including making barns where harvested yams and cocoa yams will be kept, as what obtains in the villages in many parts of the country including the South-East and South-South towns.
Those who may need to borrow money from those who can help them to buy the things that are required for planting could have started as early as they could to negotiate for such facilities in order not to be disappointed in that regard when farming proper begins any time from now.
In all, it is important that many people should participate in agricultural activities this year in order to grow and produce some of the things they will eat later this year such as vegetables, bulbs, cereals, nuts, cassava, yams, cocoyam, pepper, fluted pumpkin and pumpkin, et cetera, including groundnuts and some varieties of beans.
Even, when these farm products are excess in quantities that are more than what we need at the family level, we may sell the excess quantities and raise a part of the money we need to run our individual and extended families, just as we may give some of these excess products to our dear friends and relatives, and those who need them but who do not participate in farming activities because of one reason or the other.
On the other hand, those who have the financial and other resources but who may not have the pieces of land where they can farm may well sponsor those who have land but lack the necessary inputs and financial capabilities to engage in subsistent or commercial farming.
This is what obtains in many urban, semi-urban and townships today. In these areas, many people who like to engage in one agricultural activity or the other are often discouraged because they do not have the pieces of land where they can carry on their agricultural activities; where they can plant those things they need to plant and harvest when others do.
It is very important, at this juncture, to emphasise that as we go into the 2022 farming season, all those Nigerians who can do so should do their best to participate in it in order to produce a part of what their family members will feed on in order to reduce hunger in the land, and even make some money gains such families need to survive these hard times as occasioned by inflation, hardship, unemployment, non-payment of salaries, pensions and gratuities, and the recent emergence of coronavirus disease that has slowed down the economic activities world over since its outbreak in 2019 till today.
Really, it is good that we actively participate in the current farming season in our individual and collective interests. We should not allow any piece of land to lie fallow within our living premises; we can plant one or two things on such lands to help us produce a part of what we eat and live a healthy life, which we cannot do without food
