Babalola awarded cash gifts to a total of 81 best performing farmers, made up of five farmers in each of the 16 local government areas of Ekiti.
By Jeffrey Agbo
Legal luminary, Afe Babalola (SAN), has called on all Nigerians to go into farming irrespective of profession or status.
Speaking on Sunday in Ado-Ekiti at the closing ceremony of the 2022 edition of the annual Afe Babalola Agricultural Expo (ABA-EX) and Youth Development, the senior lawyer said that embracing farming is the panacea for the country to make meaningful impact in evolving alternative economic reliance.
Babalola said he developed interest in farming while in primary school and never looked back.
The founder of Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti said that he introduced the initiative to return the sector to its rightful place, adding that farming remains one of the best solutions to the country’s myriads of problems.
He said, “These problems include unemployment, poor revenue earnings among others. I got myself involved in all-round agriculture from the days of my youths because I have undying believe in it as solutions to problems, especially hunger.
“I was born as a farmer and it is not surprising that I still continue to farm till today in spite of all that God has enabled me to attain.
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“That is what I expect all Nigerians to do, no matter what you are, or who you are. You just have to be involved in farming.
“If we all do, you can then imagine how many farmlands we would have had by now.
“Every family wants to be great, yet we are not involved in agriculture. We live in a nation where we produce less and consume more.
“Things don’t work like that, except we are waiting for calamity to happen. In fact, we are already in the calamity.”
Babalola awarded cash gifts to a total of 81 best performing farmers, made up of five farmers in each of the 16 local government areas of Ekiti.
The best farmer from each LGA got a cash sum of N200,000, second best got N150,000, third best got N100,000, fourth best was given N75,000 while the fifth best went home with N50,000.
Babalola gave the overall best farmer across the state the star prize of N2 million among other things.
There was also the provision of farm kits for several jobless youths under the Afe Babalola Empowerment Programme totaling N34 million.