Lyrics: What do you think our problem is with Agricultural Value chain?.

Mr.Uka: First of all the Agricultural Sector is highly deglorified.Lets not even talk about the fundamental problems we have in regards to Social Amenities, Availability of infrastructures that is required for businesses to grow normally.
There are areas where we are having problems and as long as those problems remains unsolved it will be difficult to get young people involved in agriculture and the more we are not getting young people involved in agriculture the more complex our problem gets. It means that an entire generation is going to be lost, so not getting involved in agric you don’t want to know the amount of setback that is. You have a culture coming from one generation to another and in an entire generation that culture suspends. That means the following generation is going to find it more difficult to get in.Infact that is part of what we already have happening now. One of the Major problems we are facing just as Mr. Chima stated previous is Basic Knowledge of Agriculture in our Schools. If you check the primary School text book with secondary school Agricultural Text book its all saying same thing. What is been thought in schools is different from what we have in reality

Lyrics: Let talk Evolution a little bit. I think we have evolved. We have a generation now who are more into follow “wetin oyibo dey do” and to the best of their own knowledge “Oyibo no dey farm”.

Mr.Uka: You said to the best of their own knowledge baa. That’s to show you that the Knowledge is faulty because they are not informed.Oyibo dey farm big time mehn.the amount of energy and resources that go into farming on the oyibo side would make young person here in Nigeria say that “this is an oil well. And this because he does not know that if people come together pull resources together to go into this agriculture that we are despising here he will get tons of money from it. That re-establishes the point I am trying to make. The point I am trying to make is the problem first of all is Lack of knowledge, there is too much ignorance about the subject matter as far an average Nigerian youth is concerned.

Lyrics:What would be your advice to someone who has 3 million for example, looking for a way to invest it?.

Mr.Alex:When the guy is thinking that he has 3 million for instance and doesn’t want to go and farm.the guy doesn’t know what farming because if he does he would borrow more 3 million and invest into farming. This where is issue starts, Agriculture is badly branded in Nigeria as per say. There is a big prospection problem with that sector. And we cure that Perspection Problem Alone.

Lyrics: So how do we cure it?

Mr Alex: For instance we are having this conversation. There’s a lot that the civil society need to do .By doing Massive Orientation by the Government.For example there is an agency in government by name National Orientation Agency(NAO).

Lyrics:The Orientation Agency I think they are doing very well but the Orientation wey them dey give and the orientation wey we dey get no be same thing. In the sense that wetin dem dey give us no be wetin we need.

Mr.Alex: If they are not giving you what you need that means they don’t have communication capacities which isn’t a good quality at all.Ability to reach the people with messages that is designed to achieve certain results. So if they are not able to speak in a language that you cant understand are they Ghanian Agency?or America Agency?.if they are Nigerian Agency that they should be able to speak in the language that an average Nigerian will be able to understand.

Firstly,We have to speak the language that people will be able to understand.

Secondly, we need to create and ecosystem that makes it possible for youths to know not just how harvest but also how to take to places where needed.
As long as Oil and politics are the highest paying ventures in this country, what are you going to tell the Average Youth?.He will rather go for thuggery rather than farming.
Female :With Agriculture itself not doing well would you still advice a young person to go into other Value Chains in Agriculture like Beef Packaging,Marketing.Etc

Mr.Alex: There is an aspect of this value chain that is highly neglected and that is the processing and packaging aspect of it.Because whether we like it or not there are Big Players in Agriculture. For example Obasanjo that has the biggest Water farm in West Africa .
When we export raw material what end up exporting is job Opportunities. In UK for instance as of the last time I checked they consume 6 million bottles of cashew daily. And some other countries like USA. CANADA, United Fly Emirates. And they don’t grow cashews. All the cashews they consume are exported in there. They come here to buy and they have given us that very mindset of selling raw materials to them, mindset that we are the growers. These people are taking us technically Backward and we have accepting due to ignorance and lack of exposures. For instance if you open a cashew Factory here in Nigeria. You have created job opportunity for some youths in Nigeria.The Driver who supplies the cashew ,Factory Worker in different Units. The Graphics designer who will design the logo for the industry.Etc