If you are looking for good vegetable to make tasteful soup, Lafia the capital of Nasarawa State, is a place to visit. A place where farming of vegetable and many other soup ingredients thrives.
The cultivation of these soup ingredients is done throughout the year.
Food items, vegetable in particular, are necessity for every society. It has been identified as one of the alternative crops supporting the livelihood of many people if not virtually all.
Its production creates self employment, generates income for the people in the rural areas who are mainly farmers as it banishes poverty and it is environmentally sustainable to all human.
Ambana community in Lafia, which is the major area of production, believes that vegetable farming is something every farmer should think of embracing, because it has a lot of benefits attached to it especially when it comes to the time of harvest.
However, Tribune Nigeria took a trip to this village to find out its uniqueness, and the processes involved in the production.
Tsarki Ambana, Abubakar Musa has this to say “ these soup ingredients are very important to people in this village. We have been cultivating them for many decades and they are very useful to us. My people used to make lot of money out of them to feed their families and even to build houses. Some in a year can generate about one hundred thousand and above. You see, it is a good business.
“I will like to call on the government to assist these farmers with fertilizers so that their crops will yield produce and to encourage them to do more. In fact, We don’t get fertilizer here every year, except we engage in the use of local manure. That is when herdsmen take their cows to our farms to stay for sometimes, otherwise nothing for us. So, government should help us with fertilizer to boost our production.”
Also, Abdulahi Saidu, (Tsarki Gwari) said “ I do farm all sorts of vegetable. I also plant yam, beans, and other items. But among all aforementioned crops, I plant much on the vegetable cultivation because of its lucrative nature and acceptability to all.
“It is good for both young and old to embrace farming.
“You see, I have been doing this since my childhood. That is, for over 65 years, I have been practicing this farming, and I use to realise about N500,000 or more annually. You know, I was doing the work at Zaria before I moved down to Nasarawa State where I have continued.
“More so, farming has never failed me since the time I indulged in it. Even now, if you go to my farms you will be amazed.
“Last time, some people came to interview us and measure the farms, promising that they would help us with something. But they never showed up again since then; nothing at all. So, we are not getting fertilizer here. Even chemicals to apply to the farm are not forth coming.
“On the processes involved in the cultivation, when you make ridges, you transplant from the nursery beds into the ridges. After few weeks, you weed all grasses and then apply fertilizer or local manure. Thereafter, you make another ridges covering the plant so that it will yield quality produce. Or again, after applying the manure, since there is no fertilizer, we now make ridges and then wait to see what God gives us. We then take the products to Lafia market for sale every three or four days depending on the size of the farm.
“Well, we are calling on Government to help us with funds and fertilizer to encourage us in this farming so that we can keep the spirit alive. You can also see that we don’t have access road to this place. We equally want government to assist us to construct roads to our farms so that we can convey our farms produce to the market.”
Musa Abdulahi, who practises irrigation farming in Lafia, also comments thus:
“This is what I have been doing for over 20 years now. I was following my father before his demised and I took over from him.
“In fact, I make huge amount of money out of this venture. Like now as you can see, I am cutting this vegetable leaves to take to Lafia market for sale. Sometime, people come to us and buy from us.
“Our challenge are lack of support from government and well meaning individuals. We don’t get fertilizer or pesticides to control our farms from attacks. So, we are calling on them to help us with some modern tools to boost our production,” he pleaded.
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