A statement by Prof. Chinedum Nwajiuba, former Vice Chancellor, Alex Ekwueme Federal University, Ebonyi State, at the seminar on “Yam planting in sacks”, on Wednesday, March, 19, 2025, at Obollo, Isiala-Mbano, Imo State, Nigeria
First is to thank my brother and friend, Sir Basil Njoku, for this initiative, of bringing home this knowledge for the benefit of our people.
You know our people talk about akurulo, wealth reaching our home base, and by that, they may mean personal physical projects, community projects, and financial remittances. Yes, these are good, but when our people live in the diaspora, and we complain about brain drain, we see our compensation more in financial remittances.
There should be compensation in terms of knowledge gained. That is one area our diaspora will have to do more, and here we are, with Sir Basil leading, as always.
Many persons have become used to expecting gifts, especially food items, from our people, not resident in rural areas, especially since the economic situation worsened. This is also good, but it is perhaps better to equip our people to grow more food. As it is said, it is better to teach how to fish than give fish.
In appreciating this initiative and you, the participants, my core message is that it is time to rise above traditional practices in agriculture.
By traditional practices, we mean the way we used to or have been doing it. We need knowledge. We need technologies, among others, different from what we know and what we have been doing.
The Igbo would say, akugharia egwu, azogharia ukwu egwu, when the drum beat changes the dance steps must change.
Let’s take a few examples.
a) Our farming calendar has traditionally been dictated by the on-set and cessation of rainfall. Those dates were traditionally the most important to farmers and principal determinants of whether farmers went to the farm. Now, climate change has impacted that, and we must adapt. We must change.
b) Last year, 2024, we waited for the rain until the end of April. The heat was extreme. We expected that having started late, the rain will last longer. That did not happen. We have been searching for rainfall records at the closest research institute around us, the National Root Crops Research Institute at Umudike in Abia state, so we can search for similar experiences in the past. Sadly, there is nowhere in Imo state with rainfall records. Years ago even our primary schools had rain guage and wind vane. That is no longer the case.
c) This year, the rain started by February and more this month of March. What it tells us is that what we were used to, which is rain by April, is no longer the case. There is no longer a clear pattern or rhythm, contrary to what we were taught about on-set and end of the rainy season. This is one impact of climate change not highlighted. Farmers deal with uncertainties, which can be discouraging.
Yet we can not allow hunger to kill us, as food costs remain high.
To rise above these uncertainties around traditional practices, we must shift to what new knowledge exists. One of such is planting in sacks.
As has been demonstrated, the advantages are many. Last year, I planted 250 yam seeds. They performed well.
The advantages include:
a) You need less land spaces. Even within your compound, you can plant in sacks.
b) it saves on labour. As you know, lack of labour and high cost of hired labour are very critical constraints to our farmers, as young people may not be available, as was the case to provide farm labour, whether hired of volunteered, or even as family labour.
c) it reduces the cost of weeding. Traditional weeding relied on labour, especially on our women.
d) it helps in managing soil fettility, reducing the effects of heavy rainfall on leaching nutrients away from the soil.
e) it is a classic example of the idea of circular economy, in which what you have been burning, such as cement and other bags, become useful rather than being burnt, leading to air pollution.A few tips.
Stop bush burning. When you cut your bushes, or you see your neighbour cut bushes or indeed any leaves, which are organic matters as they decay, or even tree crops in your compound which shed leaves, and which you have been burning, please gather them.
In each of the sacks, first put in those leaves before putting in sand. You can also use them as mulch after sowing. In hot and dry periods it protects the yam, and in the rainy season, it helps ensure mild impact of rain on your yam sack.
Remember that yam tuber has roots at the top, not below. Those roots will take the relevant nutrients to enable the plant to do well, so let your organic manure not be below the yam seeds, but above. Note that we also encourage organic manure.We can not continue being rain-fed farming systems.
That is also one area we should rise above.
Farming should be year-round.
We should not continue with traditional practices of starting farming in April and folding our hands after October. We should farm year-round.
I know someone at Ihitte/Uboma, Mr. Ebeninro, who has been doing that. He should be studied. He grows maize, sweet potatoes, tumeric, etc., year- round.
The constraint is water, and we have to figure out how to find irrigation water and make them available for farmers to grow traditional and not traditional crops year round. Mr. Ebeniro has developed mini irrigated farming. That should be emulated.
Then we have to develop better storage, better processing, access better marketing timing like our oil palm produce traders, who smiled to the banks last year, selling oil bought at N20,000 on the average at N45,000 on the average per 25 litres, or even cocoa farmers and traders who did even better.
In any case, in almost all sectors of our society, we have changed. The most stagnant sector is farming and agriculture, where we remain where our forefathers were technologically more than four centuries with cutlass and hoes.
