The Farmers Economic Empowerment Association has said it will no longer accept motorcycles as settlement for labour wages for foreign nationals who work as labourers in Nigerian farms during the current farming season.
The group at its national conference on Friday said instead of their usual practice of buying motorcycles as a means of payment for farm labour to foreigners, it had accepted that each labourer would be paid a sum of N400,000 as the fee for work done in the 2023 farming season.
It also added that wages would be determined by the amount of work done in subsequent years.
Before now, the farmers’ group had been paying foreign nationals from neighbouring countries, including Benin Republic, Togo, Cote D’Ivoire and Chad, who work on their farms during each year’s farming season with Bajaj motorcycles; a move the union said was now unacceptable.
Presenting the resolutions to the National Chairman of FEEMA, Prof Abubakar Ali-Agan, in Ilorin, Kwara State, on Saturday, a delegation led by Alhaji Abdulhameed Baba-Epe, said its resolutions were reached at the conference attended by members across the country, including Oyo, Kwara, Kogi, Niger, Ekiti and Osun, among other states.
In the communiqué presented to Ali-Agan, the association said it had affirmed the fact that farming is the backbone of the national economy, adding that any anomaly or dispute in the agricultural sector connotes a serious danger in the feeding of the nation.
“At the said conference, the members observed the anomaly of payment of a unit of Bajaj Boxer motorcycle by the members of the association to each labourer, even though the quantity of the works done does not tantamount to the exorbitant price of the motorcycle being paid”, the communiqué read.
