‘Middlemen in agricultural sector responsible for high food cost’

Activities of middlemen in the agricultural sector usually leads to high cost of food in the market, Professor Tajudeen Bameke of the Department of Agricultural Extension, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB), has said.

The don, who was among facilitators at a training to empower 3,000 Smallholders’ Vulnerable Farmers in Southwest and South South, urged farmers to add value to their products to make more profit.

Bameke said processing agricultural produce through value addition would reduce exploitation by middlemen and as well reduce the high cost of food in the market.

He said while middlemen rake in so much, the real farmers make little profit on their produce.

The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security carried out the training in implementing Agriculture For Food and Jobs Creation Programme, AFJP, under the National Poverty Reduction with Growth Scheme of Federal Ministry of Budget and National Planning.

The training and empowerment of famers were carried out simultaneously in the 12 South West and South South States of the Country.

The beneficiaries who were drawn by the respective State Ministry of Agriculture and validated by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security were supported with farm inputs to assist and improve their farm production and productivity.

Inputs distributed include Knapsack sprayers, organic fertilisers, herbicides, maize seeds, rice seeds, vegetable seeds like tomato, pepper and okra for homesteads farming. Other Inputs were Day Old Chicks for poultry farmers and fish feeds for fish farmers.

The major objective of the programme was to take the vulnerable Smallholder’s farmers out of poverty by enhancing their productivity through the use of modern Agricultural technologies.

Twelve Resource persons were drawn from the Faculties of Agriculture in the Federal Universities to take the farmers through Good Agricultural Practices that will assist them to become successful commercial farmers.