Commissioner raises the alarm over extinction of farmers

The ageing population of farmers in Oyo State is a major concern to the state government, the new Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr. Daniel Kolade, has said.Kolade, who looked worried, told the News Agency of Nigeria in Ibadan on Sunday that if corrective steps were not taken, the farmers would soon be endangered species that might become extinct very soon.He said, If you look at things around us today, especially in Oyo State, the average age of the practising farmer stands between 60 and 66 years and we have seen that we cannot grow with this.Kolade said that in order to reverse the trend, the new administration of Governor Abiola Ajimobi had commenced a programme it tagged, ``School Agriculture Programme, aimed at encouraging farming among the youths.The commissioner said that with the eventual successful implementation of the programme, the government was optimistic that within the next few years, the age of farmers would improve to between 35 and 40 years.We want to make agriculture a good thing for people in the state to be able to practise, especially the young generation,he said.He said the government was determined to make the school agriculture programme a success because it was very relevant when one looked at the precarious food situation globally.Kolade cited the cases of Australia and Thailand among others, in the world where extreme flooding had destroyed huge farmlands, spelling doom for the countries since the people might not have enough to eat.``Worldwide, we see that the problem of food crises, and except the young generation comes into agriculture, it may not sound or portend well for the people of Oyo State and the nation in general.So, the time to act is now.
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