How attractive is it to the ears of
our parents that we have to undergo a compulsory Farm Practical Year which will
span for one year and prepare us adequately for the ugly but very true
challenges of unemployment which secedes the four or five years of fantasy in
our university days?
As students of agricultural sciences
studying in a University of Agriculture, it is expected that we know the
‘how-to’ when it comes to successful cultivation of plants and rearing of
healthy animals; interestingly, the irony is what we experience.
Whose fault is it that high
mortality rate are being recorded on our animal farms? Not our instructors
fault and maybe not ours! Whose fault is it that the soil is not rich enough to
host the plant or that the seeds are bad and cannot thrive? Definitely, not the
poor students’ fault too! And the laws of nature can never be cheated;
bad seeds cannot make a good plantation- ideally, and same goes for animals.
For how long then shall we keep
deceiving ourselves? After toiling through the sunny days and spending the
rainy months keenly following instructions of our experienced instructors, why
then should we be tasked to pay through our nose all in the name of meeting the
institution's target. Isn’t it wiser for us to dig deep,
find the root cause for the poor performances of plants and animals, then,
invest time, resources- human (skilled and unskilled) and financial-
consistently till the problems are solved and the desired result is obtained?
These questions are begging for
answers. If we continue dishing a buffet of already frustrated students into a
under-employed/unemployed society, we only will successfully end up frustrating
effortlessly the zeal of the young ones to promote agriculture and we will stay
hungry as a nation till we draw the curtains on such an era of deception.
Adebote Oluwaseyifunmi is a youth advocate and media personnel, he lives in Enugu state, Nigeria and can be reached via Twitter or on 08130979064
No comments
Post a Comment