The Vice Chancellor of the Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State, Prof. Sidi Osho, has charged the Federal and state governments to protect the environment.
Osho has also advocated the care of the womenfolk in the country in order to ensure a sustainable agricultural development.
She said this on Thursday while delivering a keynote address at the First Prof. Peter Adebola Okuneye Intervarsity Debate organised by the Agricultural Economics Students’ Association of the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Ogun State.
The debaters, who spoke on the topic, “Can Agricultural Production Be Sustainable Through Agricultural Transformation Agenda?,” were drawn from the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomosho; the University of Ibadan; Federal University of Technology, Akure; Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife; Osun State University, Osogbo; Babcock University, Illishan Remo, Ogun State and the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta.
Speaking on the topic “Environmental Challenges and Sustainable Agricultural Production in Nigeria: The Role of Agricultural Transformation Agenda,” Osho said that it had become imperative for states and the Federal Government to protect the environment, especially “from water and soil pollution, loss of biodiversity through deforestation, soil degradation, mono cropping and over-cropping.”
The school's VC called for the participation of the country in global environmental efforts in order to monitor developments all over the world and appropriately key into policies that would move the country forward.
She, however, stressed that the womenfolk in the country deserved care because they formed the backbone of the labour required in the agricultural sector.
She said, “In many African countries women provide 33 per cent of the workforce, 70 per cent of the agricultural workers, 60 to 80 per cent of the labour to productive food for household consumption and sale, 100 per cent of the processing of basic foodstuffs, 90 per cent of household water and fuel wood, 80 per cent of food storage and transport from farm to village, 90 per cent of the hoeing and weeding work, 60 per cent of the harvesting and marketing activities.”
The lecturer demanded the provision of a market-oriented approach to production to minimise produce wastage and enhancement of shelf life of most agricultural produce.
She continued that there was the need for the provision of economic incentives in the areas of appropriate pricing of agricultural products, availability of intermediate technologies for processing and storage of farm produce.
Osho further stated that increasing the access of the poor to land and other productive resources would go a long way in reducing poverty and generating employment.
