The above question may sound curious depending on who is ruminating over the matter. There is the need sometimes to confront the stark reality as it is in order to point at situations in which we have erred. Food is one of the basic needs of life without which we cannot sustain our existence. We lack food and complain about its expensive nature.
Those who do price monitoring or compile the price index can tell you food is one of the things that their prices variations occur frequently even by seconds. A variety of factors can cause the constant price changes experienced but the greatest I know is scarcity. Food is scarce because demand is higher than the supply and the consequence is price increase.
Our population uncontrolled as it is grows in leaps and bounds while the farmers are few. Farming in our country is derided as a job for the poor; excepting big farmers in large scale agro business majority of those who embark on it at least at subsistence level are generally the poor members of the society. I cannot figure out how this view came to occupy our minds but that is the truth.
Today, it is difficult to get youths to study agricultural programs in our universities because they despise it. We can never ignore agriculture because everything that we need to survive is in the bowel of the earth and until we till the ground it will be hard to eat.
Prior to this period, far back in the days, food was a common thing. In the villages it is used as a show of gesture to welcome guests. It was not scarce. Virtually every mother grew his food in the back garden. It can be prepared by just running in there and food will be ready in a matter of minutes. Nobody denies anybody food anywhere. I cannot say so of now
In this day and age it is shameful to see how people scramble for food at occasions to the extent that people now pack foods and drinks home during functions. Burial occasions are not exempted even as odd as it appears. Today the back gardens that we use to have back home are all gone. The yam barns are no more, the farms have disappeared. We have drifted to the town in search of money to buy food instead of growing the food.
Farm work is part of the culture of the Igbo but it is almost going into extinction because the earlier generations of farmers have gone without being succeeded and the present generations of youths hardly show interest in farming.
With the food scarcity in vogue in the land one would expect that many of us would be challenged to take to farming but this is not so. There are very many of us who are so distanced from farm that you can swear they have never held any farm implement all their lives. Every day we complaint about the cost of living but have you ever held a hoe?
Farming is a noble activity. It is one of those efforts that you take pride in your own labour. Flashing back I can recall in those days as we were growing it is a thing of pride to show off your ridges, your harvest, your goats when they give births, your basket of cracked palm kernel the proceeds of which are used to pay our school bills and buy us Christmas clothing.
Majority of today’s parents especially those who were born in the townships and grew up there, had their education and started earning a living through civil service or business activities may have been cut off from the experience of farming.
My casual study indicates that even most parents in their forties and above have no farm experience and if this is the case what do we expect that they will bequeath to their children. A legal maxim ‘nemo dat quod non habet’ holds that you cannot give what you don’t have yet these parents have children that are crying for foods every day.
The irony is that there is abundance of arable lands everywhere but they are left to lie fallow. Government promotion of agriculture is anything but real as politicians use the opportunity to fritter our scarce resources. The only kind of farming that we see people do today is commonly found in snailery, poultry, fish farm, piggery etc and the number of those involved are quite insignificant with little impact.
Now that another farming season is by the corner can we begin to make a change? That is desirable. It is never too late for new beginning. There are many benefits of farming especially at subsistence level. It will help to reduce food scarcity. It gives you opportunity to grow varieties of food of choice instead of relying on foreign food with all its dangers.
Many people will plead many reasons outside interest for their failure to engage in agricultural activities such unavailability of land, money etc. But what they don’t reckon with is that the proceeds of farm has way of reducing the food bill. Garri processed from cassava from the farm can take a family through an appreciable length of time.
Today virtually 90% of foods consumed in Igbo land come from the north. We are more contented in growing money and other assets than food because we hold the thinking that with money we can buy anything. But what if food supply stops coming from the north? Assuming we realize the Biafra it is certain that we will be importing food from the north or we will starve.
This situation with individuals is not any different with our industrialists. It is difficult to find big Igbo farmers just like we have in the north and it raises a lot of questions. Our forebears fed us and ensured that we never lacked food. Now that we are in an era of improved lifestyle what is our excuse in not feeding ourselves. Why should we lack food?
