75th Birthday: Food Security Expert, Amos Adebisi, Offers Solutions To End Food Scarcity, Farmer-Herder Conflicts
•By Oyeniyi Awojoodu
IBADAN – Deeply concerned about the high price of food commodities in Nigeria, an agriculturist, Elder Amos Oluwafemi Adebisi, has urged the Nigerian government to urgently implement agricultural policies that will mitigate the rising cost of food in the country.
The septuagenarians made this call while speaking on food insecurity in the country, shortly after cutting his 75th birthday anniversary cake at his residence in Olodo axis of Ibadan, the Capital City of Oyo State.
Elder Adebisi, a retiree at the Oyo State Ministry of Agriculture and Urban Development, and a consultant Agricultural extension worker, described the country’s food insecurity indices as appalling, even as he attributed the crisis to factors ranging from government’s unstable policies, conflicts between herders and farmers, terrorism and lack of goodwill on the path of stakeholders.
He opined that while inconsistency and inability to carry out due diligence by the government in giving support to farmers continued to be major bottlenecks in its interventions, the non-adoption of native agricultural intelligence in crop production by farmers had increased the continuous clash between farmers and herders.
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He also preferred that aside from the earlier mentioned factors, the government must engage the service of qualified extension workers across the length and breadth of the country to pass down the right information to real farmers with a focus on changing the present food security narrative.
He said, “Government needs to provide more extension officers. This will further aid food sufficiency
“The availability of more extension officers will help our farmers a lot; these are the people that know this job very well. You can imagine someone that started his career from School Certificate to School of Agriculture or College of Agriculture for OND, then proceeded to maybe Moor Plantation or another School of Agriculture for HND, these people can’t be compared to someone that just goes to the university directly from his secondary school.
“These extension officers have all the experience needed in the agricultural production, and they know what farmers need, they will be able to guide them right.
“These people have acquired a lot of experience that the farmers need to excel in their production.
“These were part of the services I rendered while in active service and today being my 75th birthday, I feel fulfilled.
“All I can say is that I don’t merit all that I have gotten from the Almighty God.”
“I have worked with the National Livestock Project Department, Nigeria Agriculture and Cooperative Bank (NACB) where I was in charge of screening of the farmers.
“When you go out to screen the farmers, you will write reports about each farmers, but they will not follow it, and when they did not follow it, the only thing I can do is to advise the farmers on what to do, and when it comes to the government, they will be passing the files from one table to the other and at the end of the day nothing will come out, and even if something comes out, it will not go to the genuine farmers. So, that is another part of the problem we are facing.
While speaking on the way out of the farmers-herders clash Adebisi urged farmers to be planting jatropha plants and melons at the boundaries of their farms.
He said, “there are some local intelligent solutions we can adopt to stop harders and their animals from entering our our farms, this will stop us from falling victim to their attacks, cattle don’t eat melon, or jatropha leaves, what we need to is to just plant them at the boundaries of our farm.
Concerning his birthday, Elder Adebisi said, “all I can say is that I received ‘unmerited favour’ from God, because I know people I started with, many of them are no longer alive today.
“I have passed through so many things, I have crossed so many hurdles, very rough, but God still made me stand tall to date. So, I’m very grateful to God for making it possible for me to witness today.”
In his remarks, the immediate junior brother of the celebrant, Mr Reuben Abiodun Adebisi, described his brother (Elder Amos Adebisi) as an icon and someone who could not be compared with any other person.
“He brought us up from the scratch, he’s marvelous, he is a very strong pillar in the family. Without him, people like us and our junior ones might not go to school, but he sacrificed so many things for us to get to where we are today and we give glory to God Almighty for his life as he’s celebrating his 75th birthday today, I wish him long life and prosperity.”
Also in his remarks, the Saturday editor of Daily INDEPENDENT Newspaper, Pastor Yemi Adebisi who is also one of the brothers of the he celebrant, described the celebrant as a straight forward person.
He said, “the celebrant, Elder Amos Oluwafemi Adebisi is the first born of the dynasty. He’s the bridge builder of the family. When we lost our father about 21 years ago, he stood in as our father, and he has been playing that role very well.
“I remembered right then when I was in primary school, I always spent my holidays with him, he’s been a very compassionate person, very humble but a great disciplinarian.
“He is also a workaholic who doesn’t take no for an answer. He believes in hard work, arbours laziness. He is a straight forward person who says things the way they are. He doesn’t manipulate; that’s one of the reasons he has problems working with people in the ministry while in active service, because if is somebody that could play their own kind of game, he would have been richer and be living a better life than what he is today but he has chosen to do things the way they should be done, leaving the rest to God.
“We thank God that a day like this met him alive, and we believe that God will give him more grace to celebrate more.” Yemi Adebisi said.
Reverend Segun Felix Adebisi, also a brother to the celebrant said, “I just want to thank God that we are celebrating him today, and all I can say is that God has really been helping us in this family. God has been with us right from when we were very young and up till now, God is still making us to be one strong family and I can say today’s ceremony is memorable to us. No one will forget it in a hurry, especially all the members of this family.
The celebrant, Elder Amos Oluwafemi Adebisi was celebrated by his children, grandchildren, in-laws, close friends and relatives as well as community members, they also spoke highly of him as a father with a large heart.