The Dean, Student Affairs, University of Ilorin, Prof Abayomi Omotesho has said that as long as the reward of farming remained low, slow and unattractive, youths might never be involved in the sector.

Speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja, Omotesho, remarked that no amount of campaign could attract the interest of in agriculture, unless the reward system in the sector changed

According to him, if the sector is appealing, nobody needs to campaign to the youths to participate, because they will be willing to make money, therefore, they will be willing to farm.

He, therefore, urged the Federal Government to provide more incentives so the youths would be motivated to go into agriculture, thereby producing more food for the growing populace.

Omotesho continued: "Nobody has to campaign to ask people to join politics; nobody has to campaign to ask people to become contractors or go into music; people are running to these areas because they can see the returns.

"But for agriculture, you see somebody toiling night and day and have extremely little or nothing to show; it is discouraging.

"Agriculture is not a get-rich-quick thing; you must exercise a lot of patience and the quickest thing you may get is after 90 days of planting.

" If you want to earn an income from crop farming, fish farming, poultry or any aspect of agriculture, you must be willing to wait.'

' The dean noted that youths were more discouraged to go into agriculture when they see their peers in the other sectors making so much money without working hard.

He maintained: "Except the reward system changes, no matter how much government tries to involve the youths in agriculture, it might not work.

"Just recently, 10 tubers of yam were sold to the consumer for N4, 000, meaning one is N400 and the seller was not the farmer.

"So, I was wondering how much the seller would have bought it from the farmer, probably between N50 and N100 per one. It is from this money that the farmer will take responsibility on his family.

"Considering all the time the farmer has put into planting, the hard work, the patience of waiting from planting to harvest, I asked myself, `how many youths will be patient enough to go through all these?''

"Most youths want a bed of roses. They are not willing to go through any farm stress when they know they can do one deal, 'hit it' and buy an exotic car.''