Youth farmers at the Youth Farm settlement, Oke-Oyi, Kwara State, have decried seasonal food wastages, saying it is caused by the inability to access modern post-harvest equipment to timely process crops.

Speaking during their maize harvest processing exercise at the farm site, the president, New Face Farmers Cooperative Association, Yusuf Onimago, expressed regret that seasonal crop wastages have now become a common trend since they could not afford modern post-harvest equipment.

He noted that the best remedy would be to have unhindered access to combined harvesters capable of not only saving time but reduce wastages, adding: "Having realised the grave implication of not harvesting and processing on time, I quickly went for a motorised Sheller machine which I rented at N10,000 per day.

Last year, when faced with similar situation, I could not get thresher machine on time and it led to a lot of Soybean wastage on the farm due to blasting that occurred along the line and it adversely affected the bean quality and quantities in the market."

He said that apart from renting the maize Sheller, he also hired 10 labourers to operate the machine.

Onimago, who planted maize on 15 hectares of land, disclosed that he initially projected three tonnes per hectare but this could not be achieved due to delay in the collection of inputs like fertiliser and chemical.

He appealed to government to provide them with post-harvest machine at subsidized rate in order to avert frequent losses being incurred by the youth farmers, adding that if the problem was allowed to persist they could be driven out of agribusiness.

Also speaking, a member of another youth farmers group, Harmony Cooperative Farmers' Association, Murtala Ismaila Kajola, advised the state government to collaborate with machine fabricators in the state with a view to alleviating their losses on seasonal basis.

He said: "On our part, we have prepared nothing less than N35, 000 for our 10 hectares for the post-harvest processing. As a matter of fact, if we have had our own Sheller machine, we would not spend such an amount."