Stakeholders in Benue State have emphasised the need for an agricultural hub using a digital framework to identify places where major foods are produced in the state for the purpose of establishing relevant factories in order to end post-harvest losses.
The stakeholders, drawn from various sectors of the society including agriculture, reached the conclusion calling for the creation of an agricultural hub in the state during the 2023 maiden edition of Benue Foods and Markets roundtable convened by Denen Achussa, a media enthusiast at the Benue hotels in Makurdi.
Speaker after speaker at the round table with the theme, “Opportunities and Obstacles in the Benue Food Market,” stressed the need for government to expand the frontiers of agriculture in Benue State.
A lecturer with the Joseph Saawuan Tarka University Makurdi (JOSTUM), Dr Bem Ugoh, asserted that an agricultural hub could be created in Benue State using digital framework that identifies places where major foods are produced that require relevant factories to be established for its processing in order to end post-harvest losses.
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He, therefore, urged the incoming administration of Reverend Father Hyacinth Alia to key into the federal government’s 10-year digital agricultural programme to promote modern agriculture and boost food production in the state.
Ugoh, who is also the Chairman of Dreams and Vision Resource Centre in Makurdi, decried the lack of an aggregated policy that would drive agricultural development in Benue, therefore he advised the incoming administration to consolidate on the agricultural policies of the outgoing government so that Benue will not start afresh as has been the case with past administrations.
The university don further posited that it was needless situating a cargo airport in Makurdi, the Benue State capital, pointing out that Makurdi was already captured in the processing zone by the Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority (NEPZA).
He said that the cargo airport should rather be established in the Sankera axis or Adikpo in Kwande local government area of the state which is part of the processing zone to connect with the headquarters in Calabar.
Ugoh further in his keynote address identified some impediments to food production in Benue State as lack of enabling facilities, lack of transportation, lack of partnership between professional people with technical expertise and the farming population as well as insecurity caused by armed herders attacks as the bane of food security and food markets.
Other factors according to him include global warming which compels farmers to wait for a particular conducive period to go to farm and political culture of policy discontinuity.
The university don, however, expressed optimism that that foods will get their values once the markets are stabilised.
On his part, Sam Agwa, Head of Agric Development and Linkages at Sir Alex Addingi Foundation (SAAF), who spoke on Markets and Transportation recommended that accurate data be collected on oranges and other agricultural produce that are said to be wasting in the state to know the exact quantity that will be enough to feed relevant industries before it will be established.
He suggested that before standard industries will be established, backyard or cottage industries should be set up to take care of foods that are already wasting.
Agwa added that there should be a proper regulation of markets to put an end to a situation where individuals decide to fix prices of commodities in markets within their areas while stressing that markets should be established even as small as community warehouses within farmers’ vicinities to avoid transporting goods to far distances.
“We are not even producing oranges enough to sustain a standard industrial process because they will get done and the factory will wait for the oranges to come back again,” Agwa said.
To this end, Barnabas Akaazua, who contributed via zoom from Lagos State on Markets and Standards recommended that hybrid tomatoes should be planted to achieve high yield.
He also upheld Sam Agwa’s position that the quantity of orange produced in Benue State was not enough to establish standard industries because production will cease for lack of the raw material.
Also presenting a paper on Markets and Transportation, New Trends in Food Production and Middlemen, Gabriel Anzam, the Chairman of Partnership for Christian Farmers, highlighted some factors militating against food production in Benue State including land acquisition problem, leaving farming in the hands of aged people as a result of brain drain and choice of politics as the only source of survival by able-bodied young men, dependence on rain-fed agriculture and multiple taxation.
The speaker decried high cost of pesticides and herbicides, recommending that the prices should be made affordable for farmers to cope with.
Anzam argued that organic fertilizer is less costly and friendly to Benue soil, however, that inorganic fertilizer should be discouraged while farmers be taught the use of compost manure.
He also encouraged farmers to diversify rather than depend on a particular crop in a season so as to improve and enhance productivity.
On his part, Patrick Omora, a Market Desk Coordinator at Radio Benue, posited that specific prices of food items be fixed to stop a situation where middlemen take advantage of surplus items and low demand in rural markets to buy at cheap rates to the detriment of the suffering farmers.
Omora also called for haulage companies in Benue State to avoid accidents in the course of conveying perishable goods that get spoiled in the process.
Another participant, Iorliam Shija, advocated for the reintroduction of agric extension services to expose rural dwellers to new agricultural skills.
Shija appealed to incoming governments to create access roads to rural areas to link farmers with markets and opportunities.
Meanwhile, the convener and President, Benue Foods and Markets, Achussah, noted that as a way forward, he would make a policy document available to the government for implementation.
He encouraged farmers to plant sesame, considering its high yield, good price and ease of cultivation.
Achussah, however, expressed appreciation to the resource persons and participants for making valuable inputs to the discourse.
