Youth Must Be Ready to Work Hard ‘says President, African farmers

The level of unemployment in Nigeria can be checkmated by youths’ encouragement into entrepreneurship skill in agriculture. Speaking with Food Farm News, the President, African Youth farmers Association (AYFA), Mr. Bakare Olademeji  said the training of farmers in the use of modern equipment technologies and application of quality improved cum access to finance is very uppermost in their agenda saying the youth must be ready. Read the excerpts of his conversation with us below.

  

Introduce yourself and tell the difference between conventional and the new improved technology?

I am the President of African Youth farmers Association, and my name is Bakare Oladimeji. The conventional fish pond is the one you excavate to a level of water coming out and is commonly done in the low land or swampy areas. But there is lot of quality challenges about this conventional one. You cannot regulate the waters and this means you cannot guarantee the quality and continuous supply of this pond even during and off raining season. However the new technology is normally done in upper land and all you need to do is just to excavate a feet to get to water level and remove the top soil with about 10 centimetre to get to the hard core where waters can be held and controlled with pipes distributing the waters from the source for the fishes. The bore hole waters is better than the tap water for fish because of the chlorine content in pipe waters which is hazardous to the fish. There is no need of pipes in the swampy pond to distribute and control waters.

How is the network of you association in Nigeria?

We are trying very well within the limited resources available to us. But for the last three years, we have embark majority on extension services in the rural areas teaching the farmers news improved varieties of crops and livestock, and helping them to access of finance facility from the micro financial banks. We believe that if they can improve their yield economically then agriculture can improve. You cannot talk of economic agriculture without encouraging farmers to the used of quality improved seeds that can increase yield production. In cassava for instance, we have trained a lot of farmers as we are in partnership with the IITA, there are varieties of cassava that can give 50-55 tons per hectare as against the 18 tons in Nigeria. The different here is that farmers of both sides will not make the same amount of money in the international market.  Also we are assisting them in terms of accessing market for sale and packaging of produce, so that they will not just sell at a giveaway price. In livestock, we have started empowerment programme for the many youths especially in fishing rearing through pond as this pond can take about 5,000 fishes each, so you are talking about 10,000 fish capacity.

Who are your sponsors for this programme in Nigeria?  

Most of our resources are internally generated through membership commitment and little other here and there. We are still hoping that government might give us support.

What is your network like?

We cover about 11 states, and for FCT alone we have about 4,260 members and there are other members from the other states as we are already expanding to Niger state. In FCT we have 56 units including Kubwa and some along the Airport road. Kuchigoro vallage alone as unit has about 126 members and each community is recognized by a name with a leader. Each unit meets periodically as they may wish monthly to discuss issue that has to do with its challenges. Each unit comes up with ideas of what they can do as unit group to attract financial support like land for a lease for its members towards farming as the least you can is vegetables.

How do you assist them in area of micro finance bank loan?

First with N150, 000 you can start a vegetable farm like Ugu, okro, and water melon. But you need to be trained in order to know the basic of all these production as we provide the basic improved seeds varieties materials that will guarantee good yield as we monitor.

Do you involve Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in all this?

They do attend our programme and even support us with resource persons for our training programme during our first and second editions of our annual youth programme in 2013 and 2014. But we have not been privileged to receive fund from the ministry. 

Why did you prefer micro finance bank loan to Bank of Agriculture looking at the interest rate of lending?

The Bank of Agriculture (BOA) loan is not helping small scale farmers as their facility is very difficult to access unlike the micro finance banks whose interest rate is 5% per month which is very okay for a crop or livestock under three months. For example you can take a loan of N150,000 for vegetable production like Ugu, Okro,and water leaf. All you need at this level is basic training on best practices of high yield for commercial market as we go ahead to provide you with improved varieties of seeds. In livestock, you can do a birds of 200 as you borrow N100,000 at 5% and in the next three you can make between N160,000-N170,000 and you pay your loan of N100,000 with 5% of N15,000. Just do plus and minus and see the profit margin you cannot easily get from the BOA because of long procedure you will be subjected when planting season you want to spend the money would have gone.

Your last word for the youths about farming as a hard work?

The youth must be ready to work very hard like the white men who are using modern day equipment. They do not get relax despite not using cutlass and hoes, they do hard work until their produce is harvested before they can proceed for holidays in their exotic cars to enjoy somewhere else. I work eight to nine hours every on the farm, so our youths must be ready to work and even build work as part of ethics to survive in the present economic situation, otherwise one will be useless by thinking you will not work. I have been telling our members and even show them videos of billionaire farmers working in the farms picking flowers and other things on the farm. We solicited for individuals, government and nongovernmental organizations’ support in the execution of our activities to training of the youths in the country.