Farming Never Goes Out of Style
When a Nigerian president tells Nigerians to go back to the farm, in always sounds like the noise of someone who cannot think of anything better to offer in advice and offers the most basic formula.
But in the 21st century as always, farming is still very much relevant, and the only way for mankind to eat. Farming is old and new. Old-fashioned yet trendy.
Technology has given us many new avenues but food from the farm is still the healthiest way to eat well for a long life. And the human population keeps increasing yet many people don’t know how to farm anymore.
We live in cities and most young people aspire to work in offices and not on the soil, so it sometimes seems like we’re not paying enough attention to where our basic needs come from.
But we’ve learned since the pandemic that supply chains can suddenly become unreliable due to troubles in faraway lands, so sources closer to home become rather important.
And the need for food supplies is not elastic like other economic needs. The need for daily food is urgent whereas delay of a supply ship or plane carrying smartphones or cars or even refrigerators can be tolerated for months.
Even a person who owns 4 mansions in Ikoyi should have farmland as well. That’s what would really make his or her material wealth more complete.
And with new, more efficient farming techniques to incorporate like hydroponic farming and flood irrigation of desert lands, this generation’s attention to sustainability in agriculture should be well cultivated.