Poor land access prevents finance to farmers, says expert

Poor access to land has prevented the country from unlocking the unquantifiable potential of agriculture, and access to finance continues to be a major challenge, an agriculturist has said.
   
Founder of Truvis Agro Services Limited, Debo Abodunrin, has called on the government to make land easily accessible to farmers and provide top-quality inputs with standardisation bodies for agricultural produce.
   
Abodunrin said: “The first critical step in value addition is investing in the food safety and quality of your product end to end. Product contamination with aflatoxins and other micro toxins are among the main reasons spices and herbs are rejected at European borders and this is another area that could do with government participation.”

“We discovered that the majority of herbs and spices are between 90 and 120-day gestation. Next, we found out that the majority of industrial users import almost all their inputs. And finally, we found a company that was prepared to take our products if we could grow to their specifications and signed an off-take agreement with us.”