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By: Manoah Kikekon
Garuba Afeez Olumide, the founder/ team lead for Voice of the Farmers, has commenced programs to revive young farmers clubs in secondary and primary schools across Nigeria, this is to fight against the rising hunger crisis in the nation.
Olumide launched a project called 'Every school must own a farm,' which is aimed at catching the farmer Yong and to have more youth inclusion in agriculture.
He said the aim is to contribute to zero hunger and to enhance food security. "Now that we are having challenges of food insecurity, which is as a result of low youth inclusion in agriculture, people that practice agriculture today are older people and can produce little.
"People also see agriculture as a dirty job meant for retired people. Now, we want to change the narrative and make agriculture more appealing and enticing to our youths, we are trying to see how we can catch them as youth, both in secondary and primary school."
Phase one is the awareness period, where the people will be educated on the importance of agriculture, its business opportunities, and the things they need to do before they venture into agribusiness. "Agriculture is not a hobby anymore; it's now a business, contributing to self-sufficiency and sustainability."
Phase two is training the schools, which will start next term, where Voice of the Farmers will collaborate with existing farmers and firms to come and train the schools in the area they picked. "This will be followed by farm setups. No matter how small the space in the school, it can be used for urban farming."
The final stage is mentorship, where the schools will be mentored on how to maintain and sustain their farms. "We have been to three schools, Albary, Icon Hall, and Kankon Model College. We are also working on more schools.
"We want to use the opportunity to revive young farmer clubs in schools, which will enable them to be part of agriculture from a tender age."
He is calling for the support of the State and Federal governments and other stakeholders to join him in the fight against rising hunger.
"This is also to seek support, since all we have done in the past was from our pockets. This is a big project; it will help more if the Ministry of Agriculture can look into it and partner with us. It is a project that will change the narratives of the agricultural sector and youth development in Lagos State and Nigeria since the project is not limited to Lagos State," he added.
Contact Voice of the Farmers: 09078728288