Temitope Matthew Adewole
Adewole, late 20s, graduate of crop protection and environmental biology from the University of Ibadan chose to be a farmer. He has put five hectares under cassava cultivation last year in Ekiti state. Marketers come to the farm and he has sold four hectares of cassava out of the five hectares, with one hectare left. He has seven permanent staff, one is a graduate, the others are undergraduates and lots of labourers, depending on the time of the year and the work on the farm.
He plans to go into cassava processing in the very near future, starting with processing of cassava for gari because this would be more realisable in terms of resources needed than cassava flour production. With an additional piece of land, water supply and the grinders, he says he can start production of gari. “That way I can double the staff strength because some of the labourers can now be employed on full time. In fact, the staff strength can be tripled because I would then need marketers as well. I also plan irrigation facilities so that the crops I intercrop with cassava such as maize and water melon can be produced all year round,” Adewole adds
Like many in his age group, he had choices: either to join the bandwagon of white-collar job seekers or become self-employed. While many of my friends are still in search of jobs, within a year of planting five hectares of cassava, intercropped with corn and watermelon, he has become financially independent.
Adewole schooled in Lagos State where he was born. After his university education, he was posted to the Ogun-Osun River Basin Development Authority in Ogun state. At the end of his NYSC programme, he went back to Ibadan to pick up a form for his masters degree and got the admission, Along the way, his uncle who works in Ekiti, phoned him to come over to Ekiti state if he was interested in farming. His uncle told him of Governor Kayode Fayemi administration’s Youth in Commercial Agricultural Development (YCAD). He obtained the form and entered for the programme. The interview was conducted. Out of 1,000 candidates, 150 were picked. He was one of the chosen ones.
He started with the N1.4 million in kind that the state government gave each beneficiary. “I have harvested the water melon I intercropped with cassava and sold them. I can really stand and call myself a man from the little I have made last year: just a year. Now my friends are running after me. They want me to teach them how I did it. I thank God, I thank Governor Fayemi, my uncle and Nigeria’s minister of agriculture; Akinwunmi Adesina, it was what he said that made me venture into cassava production because I realised there would be market for my cassava based on what he said,” says Adewole.
2. Jane Aniema Inyang
A 2012 graduate of genetics and biotechnology with a passion for farming, Jane Inyang studied genetics and biotechnology at the University of Calabar. Immediately after her graduation, she started crop farming on the one plot of land in her family home backyard in Benin, Edo state. After her NYSC programme which ended October, last year, she included poultry production starting with 33 birds. She grows pumpkin, yam, cassava, plantain, cocoayam and some other crops like vegetables, pepper, tomatoes and sells most of the produce from the farm in order to be financially independent.
“I started farming because I want to be financially independent now and financially free in future. I want a business I can start with a little amount of money and do something that would yield money, and farming has been my best option,”
“Without any external funding, young Jane has been able to raise less than N100,000 from personal savings to invest in buying of seeds for the crops and chicks to raise as broilers. She says, “I have been able to recover the little amount of money that we invested in seeds and stems for planting and much more than that.” Currently, she is growing stock by reinvesting most of the proceeds from the farm and has started marketing. She already sells the chickens and vegetables to individuals and households and now targets hotels, restaurants, hospitals, catering firms etc.
“Farming is a big business,” says Jane Inyang, “ I have started small, so I want to grow the business. Currently, to get funds to grow my agribusiness, I do some other production – I produce home care products – toilet wash, liquid soap. I take them round to schools and hotels and sell these to them. The profit I get from these is ploughed into growing my agribusiness. Contrary to what many people think, farming does not take all the time a person has. The money I am raising will be used to stock up birds of different ages, so that every month, I would have birds that are mature enough to be sold as meat.”
OLUYINKA ALAWODE
