Don Advocates Proper Record Keeping By Farmers
The Director, Agricultural Media Resources and Extension Centre (AMREC), Professor Dorcas Adegbite has stressed the need for farmers in the Country to imbibe the culture of effective record keeping and information management if they are to run productive farms, break even and record profit.
Speaking at a Training Workshop organised by the Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation and Information Communication Technology programme of AMREC, titled “Effective Record Keeping and Information Management in Agriculture” Professor Adegbite disclosed that in Nigeria, most farmers do not attach importance to record keeping in their farming operations to determine profits and losses but rather depend on their intuition.
The Director attributed the deficiency mainly to the subsistent nature of production and the educational background of the farming communities who erroneously feel that record keeping activities are time consuming and that they can commit to memory important information from year to year.
The University don enumerated the importance of effective record keeping by organisations and farmers to include helping organisations to respond to planned and unplanned events as well as protect the
interest and rights of present and future stakeholders, employees, clients, Government policy makers and farmers.
It also provides Extension agencies with accurate record needed to give good technical advice to farmers and provide financial institution and other lenders good record on the farms income and expenditure needed to give loan facilities to the farmers.
Highlighting other benefits of record keeping , Professor Adegbite said it helps farmers to plan as well as do a realistic forecast and budgeting, provides valuable information on the methods that work best and why others do not, helps farmers predict price changes, expenditure and sales record kept from previous seasons.
She stressed that farmers can also determine how much is required for farm expansion, keep record on rain fall incidents, determine when to plant and carry out other activities on the farm as well keep record on seed germination rates which will help they determine where to source for better seeds for the next seasons.
Other presentations at the workshops were on “Report Writing and Record Keeping” and “ICT in Management of Agricultural Information: A Practical Guide For Agricultural Administrators in the Nigerian Agricultural System”, delivered by Professor Tajudeen Banmeke and Dr. Lawal Adebowale, respectively.