Adams Aduojo was dissatisfied with the conduct of the labourers he contracted to plough his farmland for planting of beans.
The commercial farmer who lives in Enjema, a rural community in the eastern part of Kogi State, had hired their service a few months before this reporter visited but the farmland was yet untouched.
“They just collected my money and did nothing for more than a month. They must go there and do the work,” an angry Mr Aduojo said that evening.
He was reporting the perceived laziness of the labourers to his aged mother when our reporter arrived in the community.
This is one of the challenges farmers usually encounter with labourers with poor work ethic.
But for Mr Aduojo, who was gradually recovering from the biting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic that has ravaged the world for more than a year, this poses a grave setback with the concern that he may miss the second window of the planting season if the labourers delay any further.
Like any other farmer in Kogi State, he was badly affected by the pandemic, recording a huge loss, he said in an interview with PREMIUM TIMES.
“Last year, during the harvesting of cashew (nuts), between the marketers and the whites, what transpired made farmers to be at a negative point because they cannot export. A bag supposed to be sold for N70,000 was sold for N12,000,” he told our reporter.
That amounts to over 80 per cent drop in revenue for cashew farmers who depend largely on export markets for sales.
The drastic drop was linked to the COVID-19 restrictions that limited international travels last year. Experts said the purchase of cashews even stopped in some localities.
Mr Aduojo explained that while the price of cashew nuts fell, the cost of maintaining a cashew plantation remained high.
“You can use N30,000 in clearing the land. During September and October, you have to do the fire tracing so that fire will not get into it.”