Lucky Obukohwo, Reporting
With the objective to ensure food security and ward off hunger, the Obimo Farmers Association and Izunwanne Obimo Multi Purpose Corporative Society in Nsukka Local Government Area of Enugu State, have tasked the state governor, Peter Mbah to help them with tractors and other farming implements and inputs to improve their farming operations.
The Chairman of the farmers association and the President of the multipurpose Corporative Society, Mr. Chamberlain Anenechukwu Ugwuoke, who made the appeal recently, called on the state Governor, Peter Mbah, to come to the help of the farmers in the LGA.
Ugwuoke appreciated Enugu State Agricultural Development Programme (ENADEP) for organising training for Obimo farmers recently.
Addressing a 30-man think-tank selected by Izunwanne Obimo to look into food insecurity in the community, Ugwuoke stated that it has become necessary now that rain has started in earnest to start discussing food security in Obimo.
He added that Obimo community people are majorly farmers and a border town between Nsukka LGA and Uzo Uwani LGA.
Ugwuoke decried that over the years, Obimo farmers have been hindered from farming around their vicinities because of cows, goats and other animals roaming the streets of the community.
Explaining the situation further, he stated that the most worrisome of their challenges is that Fulani herders have occupied most of the farmlands with their cows, preventing Obimo farmers from going to their farms, thereby threatening the livelihood of Obimo people.
He added that Obimo farmers do not cultivate yam and cassava within the neighbourhood anymore because of cows and goats that are eating anything planted around.
According to him, “the only alternative to our farmers is to go very far away into the forest to plant crops which are also threatened by monkeys, rabbits and rodents and cows of the herders.
Also speaking at the meeting, the Programme Manager of ENADEP, Prof. Ogbonna Sam Onyeisi, commended Ugwuoke for initiating the meeting. According to Prof. Onyeisi, food security is a serious issue and a great concern of Enugu State and the Federal Government.
Mr. Augustine Ofili, Chief Security Officer of Enugu State College of Education (Technical), ESCET, harped on the need for Obimo people to find sustainable strategy to control the roaming of cows and goats. In Ofili’s view, herders’ invasion of farmlands is a national issue and that Enugu State government is formulating policies that will curtail the herders’ open grazing soon.