There is a saying among politicians that "war is too serious a thing to be left to soldiers." When I first heard it, I wondered what politicians had to do with war. But, what they were saying was that there are certain issues that shouldn't be left to professionals alone. The issue of agriculture is not the business of the ministry or the ministries of agriculture or local governments alone. It actually belongs to the private sector.
Today, we are dealing with the livestock sector as an industry, long forgotten and ignored by the various sub-sectors of the agriculture establishment. For nearly 30 years, we actually forgot agriculture. We abandoned food production to the peasant farmer in the village. And we expected him or her to feed us at very cheap prices. Today, we are all grumbling that food prices are too high. I once asked a question: if the peasant farmer was to cost his or her labour, who can buy one tuber of yam?
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