Meet the Practitioner – Graduate Philosopher and Diplomat Turned Poultry Farmer

Agriculture is one sector that has no educational barrier and can provide a sense of fulfillment, while enriching the practitioner. This is the reality for Mrs. Ufuoma Dick-Iruenabere a Bachelors Degree holder in Religious Studies and Philosophy from the then Bendel University, as well as a Higher National Diploma in Public Administration and a Masters Degree in International Affairs and Diplomacy.

Mrs. Ufuoma who described her childhood as the training ground for her current endeavor, said she grew up helping her grandmother to tend domestic animals such as goats and chickens.

A mother of four kids, she started her first poultry business alongside her vegetable garden behind her residence located in the Nigerian Army Depot Zaria, in the year 1993. By 2008, her husband retired from the Nigerian Army – this necessitated her relocating the business and also accorded her room for expansion.
She acquired land at Kamanzo village – a suburb outside Kaduna city, where she built her poultry farm that currently has 5000 layers and 400 broilers, including a fishpond.  The land where her poultry is sited is marshy and liable to flooding during the rainy season, hence to tackle this problem she built an upstairs poultry.



Currently serving as an Assistant Director with the National Youth Service Corps and living in the Abuja Metropolis, it is worthy to note that she manages her farm by commuting between Abuja and Kaduna every week , while maintaining a full staff.

Besides the challenge of commuting, she identified other issues to include the rising cost of poultry feed and over taxation by Local Government Officials in her business area. Nevertheless, she hopes to expand her business in the near future to include rearing of goats.