Chinese Insatiable Desire to Mechanize African Agriculture, Nay Nigeria
Chinese Insatiable Desire to Mechanize African Agriculture, Nay Nigeria By Prof. M. K. Othman In February 2024, a Nigerian-based Chinese agricultural machinery and equipment company, Chinige Technology Services Limited, invited me to speak as the keynote speaker at a high-level agricultural mechanization sensitization workshop for policymakers and managers of agricultural institutions. I used the NAERLS results of the 2023 wet-season agricultural performance survey (APS) to present the abysmal level of farm productivity and the vast unexplored and untapped agricultural potential that needed investment. The primary factor responsible for agriculture's appalling and disappointing productivity level is inadequate, inaccessible, and unaffordable farm machinery and equipment for small-scale farmers, who constitute about 90% of the Nigerian farming population. NAERLS survey revealed that in the 2023 farming season, 80 percent of the farmers used hand tools – cutlass and hoe to carry out...