The National Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA) has flagged off backyard farming program tagged “Grow Your Vegetable Initiative” to encourage Nigerians to produce their food crops within and around their residences or vicinity.
Executive Secretary of NALDA, Prince Paul Ikonne, while speaking at the flag-off ceremony in Abuja, opined that Nigerians must return to the olden days when available spaces in home gardens were used to grow vegetables, lamenting that urbanization is gradually taking away this concept of growing food.
NALDA is mandated to make agriculture a business and a source of wealth creation for the country by harnessing the full potentials of the vast arable lands to empower farmers and support the drive for Food security.
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Ikonne explained that NALDA is trying to encourage “Grow Your Vegetables” in order to reduce the cost of living while distributing improved hybrid seeds of tomatoes, pepper, onions and vegetable (ugu) and bags of fertilizer to farmers who have been trained on best agricultural practices.
”The essence of this program is to remind us of what we used to know while growing up. Our parents used to make use of every available space at the back of the house to plant vegetables, but urbanization is trying to take this practice away, thereby making lives in the cities more expensive when compared to the rural areas”.
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He advised Nigerians to turn their flower vase into vegetable pots, adding that they should use empty bags, broken buckets to grow food and vegetables, as he called on estate developers to always create spaces for Estate farms within their Estates.
He revealed that President Muhammadu Buhari had mandated NALDA to encourage Nigerians to produce what we eat and eat what we produce, and that NALDA would embark on the training and sensitization of farmers across the country, with the view of making them key into the programme.
