‘LASG is serious about boosting agriculture’

I can see that majority of the farmers here are northerners. How long have you started farming here?We have been farming here for almost 45 years now. I started 28 years ago. That was when I came and joined other Hausa people to farm here. All this while, we have been living with the people […]

I can see that majority of the farmers here are northerners. How long have you started farming here?
We have been farming here for almost 45 years now. I started 28 years ago. That was when I came and joined other Hausa people to farm here. All this while, we have been living with the people in peace and enjoying assistance as farmers from the federal, state and local governments. I am into the production of lettuce, onions, salad leaf, moringa leaf, ugwu leaf and other vegetables.
How many hectares of farmland are the farmers cultivating here?
I do not really know, but the place is very large. I have over 400 farmers here as at the last count. Not all the farmers here are northerners. We have Yorubas, Igbos, Calabar, Ogoja and many other tribes. But northerners are more in number.
Do you think what you are producing here is in anyway helping Lagos State to be self sufficient in food production?
Yes, we are contributing a lot towards self sufficiency in food production because all the major markets in Lagos State have their vegetable merchants coming here to buy vegetables from us. Our vegetables here must be cheaper and fresher than the ones brought from far away North. Ours get to the markets in not more than 2 hours while the consignments from the North takes a day or more.
What quantity of tomatoes and onions are you harvesting jointly per season?
We do not produce tomatoes in Lagos mainly because of too much rain and the soil is not good for it. Sometimes it will rain here continuously for 2 days. Tomatoes cannot resist such rain. All the tomatoes will be destroyed. The soil itself is not good for tomatoes. Otherwise, we could have produced it through irrigation. The type of onions we produce here is not the type that they bring from the North.  
What is the source of your seeds and farm inputs?
Majority of us are registered under the GES. We are getting fertiliser like most registered farmers but you know the seeds government is giving to farmers under the GES arrangement is either rice or maize. So we buy our vegetable seeds from the market. We have businessmen that bring vegetable seeds for us from Kano and Zaria and sell to us.
I can see a lot of moringa trees in your farm. Who buys the moringa from you, northerners or the southerners?
Moringa is a hot cake in high demand from within and outside this country. In most cases, the northerners eat moringa because of hunger. But you see highly placed persons, some of them foreigners, coming here to buy moringa. Some of them are even the ones educating us on the use of moringa. We are now aware of how to apply moringa routes, stem, leaves, seeds and flowers for medication and food. It is one of the most useful plants we have here.
Lagos State Government is acquiring farmlands in other states to boost agricultural production. Have they invited you to join in cultivating on those lands?
They have not invited us yet. But when they do, we shall join them. If they invite us to advice them or to find farm workers for them or to take some portion of the land and cultivate, we shall do it. Lagos State Government has one of the best agricultural policies in this country. It is very serious in boosting agricultural production and it has taken practical steps towards achieving this. It has so many things about agriculture that other states can copy from. Anybody that left Lagos ten years back and return now will be very surprised at the sudden change of events in the agricultural sector. By the time the state starts its mass agricultural production through the farmlands it is acquiring, the entire nation will be surprised at the successes Lagos will record.
I have realised that you are still using water cans to irrigate your plants when farmers elsewhere are using sprinklers, water pumping machines or pressure driven channels. Why is it so?
First, we do not have money for those things you are mentioning. Secondly, I do not think they are necessary here. You can see that the wells we source water from to irrigate our farms are not more than 2 to 3 feet deep. You can use your hands to get enough water to irrigate your farm.
How many times do you harvest in a year?
It is difficult to understand because we cultivate throughout the year. Again, we do not wait until we clear the farm before planting new crops, no. We can plant vegetables today and three weeks later we go and plant another one in between the ones already growing. We encounter a lot of problems during rainy season because the water uses to be too much and destroy the plants. Around November to December period when the rain is reducing and cold is setting in, our plants do not used to be very good. During dry season, we used to face shortage of water for irrigation.