To an average Nigerian youth, the man with hoe and cutlass
remains the best image of a Nigerian farmer. Majority of Nigeria's smallholder
farmers are often too poor to employ modern tools, such as tractors and plows,
despite large investment by the government in the past.
The Nigerian agricultural industry, populated as it is by aged
and ageing peasants, has progressively developed into a world of drudgery for
losers, shunned and despised by Nigerian youths.
To change this image of hoe and cutlass, it has now become
important to come up with a new program that will aggressively privatize the
commercialization of agricultural machineries in Nigeria. To this end, the
Federal Government decided to stop the buying and distribution of tractors to
farmers as it was done in the past.
President Goodluck Jonathan recently launched the private-sector
driven Agricultural Equipment Hiring Enterprises (AEHE) to mark the beginning
of a revolution in the mechanization of Nigeria's Agriculture. The goal is
simple: put hoes and cutlasses into the museums and provide farmers with access
to affordable mechanized services across the country.
The President directed the Central Bank of Nigeria to set aside
N 50 billion Agricultural Mechanization Fund for the roll out of the
Agricultural Equipment Hiring Enterprises across the country. The initiate is a
purely Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) strategy that will set up Agricultural
Equipment Hiring Enterprises in strategic locations to provide mechanized farm
services to farming communities.
