Crises take toll on Nasarawa yam farmers

At the age of 48, Thank-God is father to 31 children and husband to five wives. He has over 80,000 yam heaps in his farm with an expected yield of about 100,000 tubers. This has made him one of the renowned yam farmers among those who are in the yam business in the area.In an […]

At the age of 48, Thank-God is father to 31 children and husband to five wives. He has over 80,000 yam heaps in his farm with an expected yield of about 100,000 tubers. This has made him one of the renowned yam farmers among those who are in the yam business in the area.
In an interview with Daily Trust in his yam barn, Thank-God said yam farming is not easy because he does not have access to tractor that makes the heaps. He therefore has to have them done manually by farm labourers.
“Sometimes we (the yam farmers) have serious challenges because when farmers bring their produce to the market they will be forced to sell it very cheap because of financial needs at home. Except where one is a large scale farmer like me, who could afford to keep his produce until April to June when he can sell a tuber between N200 to N250. It is right now sold at N70 to N80 per tuber. A farmer under this condition cannot make anything much,” Thank-God stated.
He decried lack of extension service to farmers in the state, adding that such services help farmers to take simple steps to enhance productivity. For him the current market for yams is not encouraging: “Right now we are suffering. You can see yams everywhere but the market is not there. I think this has to do with the forthcoming elections. The buyers who usually come from the East, South and West don’t come again. There is this sense of uncertainty and fear of what may happen during and after the elections,” he said.
But Emmanuel Akatu, a yam farmer and marketer in the area, however attributed the lack of market to the incessant crises that have rocked that part of the state in the last three years.
“Let me tell you, in the years gone by, if you come to this market by this time, you may not be able to walk in here because everywhere would have been filled with yams, but because of the various conflicts that have affected the southern part of the state – which is predominately yam producing areas – that is why you see most of the stores here are not filled up,” Akatu also pointed out.
He lamented that yam farming which empowers many families in that part of the state is seriously threatened buy renewed conflicts involving various ethnic groups, adding that if something is not done urgently the state will face more crises because people would not be able to go to their farms thereby taking killings as the next profession.
“I am extremely disappointed. We have lived together, marrying from each other and having children, yet we are killing ourselves when we should be making money from our farms. Now look at the problems we are facing: buyers from the South and East are afraid to come to buy our farm produce from us here,” Akatu stressed.
For Akatu, and other farmers who brought their produce to the store, there is a sense of anger and concern for the future because, they observed, farmers still face intermittent attacks in their farms.
“I planted 15,000 yam heaps. It has all been destroyed because I dare not go to the farm as a result of the crises. You won’t know when somebody will appear and gun you down,” Adagba Audu told Daily Trust. “If our leaders do not do something to stop this, there would be serious consequences next year,” he cautioned,
Usman Mamman and Paul Sunday who are also yam farmers who operate a joint yam store, lamented that Agyaragu yam market is no longer what it used to be as events in the state have changed the market for the worst. Price of yams is seriously down due to lack of market created by the conflicts.
“In previous years, we make up to N150,000 selling yams daily; sometimes even more especially on Fridays – the market day. Now, there are days we don’t sell anything. You see, farmers are worried over falling prices of the produce despite the fact that supply is affected by crises because some farmers had their farmlands destroyed,” Mamman also said.
But Paul Sunday worries that if they cannot sell the yams they have now, it would be very difficult to store it because they harvest the tubers in a hurry as result of the crisis thereby inflicting bruises on many of the products.
“The implication of this is that you cannot store these bruised tubers beyond a particular period. They will get rotten. We need to sell it but the market is not there. In the past people from Lagos, Port Harcourt, Enugu and other places come here to buy yams, now very few come,” Sunday sadly noted.
In Doma, the food basket of Nasarawa State, many yam producing communities have lost their economic power because their yams have been either completely destroyed or abandoned as a result of the farmers-herders conflict.
Speaking to Daily Trust at the Doma Wednesday market, some farmers expressed uncertainty for the future because they would have to start afresh with almost nothing.
“During the days of peace, if you come to Doma, the sort of yams you see here you will not believe it. But look at the market today, it is scanty,” Ese Doma said.
Farmers in communities like Angwa Ahuta, Agyeshematu, Alawuza and some adjoining villages which are predominantly yam producing areas lost their crops to the crisis – a situation that affects the supply of the produce in the area.
An official of Doma LGC who spoke on condition of anonymity at the council secretariat said the crises which spilled over to the area have seriously affected economic activities of the local government.
“The Andoma (paramount ruler) of Doma has been trying to get the warring parties talk peace and live together. But you know there is still extreme sense of fear among many communities despite government effort to get them back to their villages. People are also reluctant to return because they have nothing to fall back to,” he said.
In Lafia, many yam producing communities have also been hit hard. Yam farmers in Assakio,  Lega-Obi, Ashangwa, Fadama Bauna, Ashige have nothing but to start afresh – their fortunes have gone down the drain due to the conflicts.
For Ahmadu Ahmed from Fadama Bauna, life goes on. “Whatever happens to you in life, take it in good faith. Some of us lost everything that we spent many years putting together, but we will move ahead.”