“Nka”, “Obiaturugo”, “Mbala”, “Idima”, etc – these are names of different varieties of yams in the Igbo Nation. The king of yam when it comes to variety is “Obiaturugo” [the yam with the royalty of the eagle] because it tastes best, and grows just well.
But Idima is the most iconic for its rarity since, sometimes, you harvest it once every three years, and it is the largest species of yam. It is planted closer to homes. The lowest of species is Mbala which does not offer a lot of economic value except for those who delight in roasted yams with pepper. Typically, no farmer commits a full farmland for Mbala; it is an auxiliary species.
(In Igbo mythology, Ugo (the eagle) is a symbol of royalty and affluence. Chiefs and Ezes in the Igbo Nation put eagle feathers on their caps. So, when a yam, the king of crops, is connected to an eagle, you get the idea that the yam must be special.
You must understand that an eagle feather demonstrates valour since killing an eagle takes one to the Ikoro, the large wooden drum that could be the size of a room. The feather was rare then, unlike now people can buy lab created feathers. Eagle is seen in the same lens as the leopard (in that cat family) in Igbo mythology.)
Why this? Agriculture is a big business right now in Nigeria. The fastest growing company in Tekedia Capital portfolio is an agriculture-focused company. Everything Nigeria has done in the last few months has favoured it except reporting its revenue in US dollars!!! Lol.
Young Graduates: there is value in agriculture. Someone must make that point, and challenge young people to find the value therein, in a multidisciplinary way, by combining capabilities from different academic backgrounds to fix frictions and capture value. You can build a great company within the agro-value chain. Of course, make it smart and embed tech in it.
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Eating is constant, and therefore agriculture will always be relevant, no displacement there. Whether rich or poor, you must feel hunger every day, it is not even discretionary. Our focus in agriculture is still heavily on farming, not that we have perfected how to get better yields anyway. We largely plant and harvest, then sell or consume; that of processing and converting to many products is still suboptimal here. So much work to do, yet we keep crying about unemployment.