The Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), has lamented the subversion of the indigenous practice that was acclaimed to be ecologically friendly, adding that farming colonialism had significant impacts on socio-cultural, environmental, and agricultural spheres.
The Executive Director, HOMEF, Dr. Nnimmo Bassey disclosed this at a media training on “My Food is Africa Campaign,” held in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, noting that the subversion of food systems was intentionally constructed through the colonization.
He stressed that that the reason for subverting the food system in Nigeria was because the colonizers needed to displace labour invested for local need as well as to expand and consolidate on labour to meet their needs, through plantation agriculture.
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“Plantation agriculture encapsulates the core practice of colonialism. It entailed land use conversion — often through massive deforestation and land grabbing. It also promoted monoculture by growing specific crops to meet specific needs of industry and colonial appetites.
“Monocultures damage soils as well as labour. In Nigeria, predominant plantations included those of oil palm, cocoa, rubber, and coffee. These crops were termed cash crops, meaning that they were cultivated for cash rather than for food.” He added
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According to him, food colonization persists today because our government sees useful agriculture as the one that earns foreign exchange, irrespective of the state of food insecurity in the nation, noting that food sovereignty is achievable only in a decolonized food system.
He explained that decolonized agriculture means elevating the precautionary principle in biosafety issues, provision of extension services, preserving local varieties, ensuring that farmers have access to land, funding research institutions to build a knowledge base on healthy soils, and outlawing harmful pesticides practice
