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ABUAD Farms: Bringing agriculture back to liveFor some time now, it has been attracting global acclaim and recognition from Japan, United States, United Nations Educational and Scientific Organisation (UNESCO), International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and some universities in Europe and America.
The attention of the Nigerian government too has been drawn to the novel mega agricultural enterprise designed as both a food basket and tourist attraction. At least two ministers of agriculture, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina and his predecessor, Prof. Abdullah, have paid the place visits, with laudatory remarks for its concept and the brain behind it.
This is Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD) Farms, located in the Ekiti State capital. A brainchild of the founder and president of ABUAD, Aare Afe Babalola (SAN), it is conceived to provide entrepreneurial training, leading to minor degrees for students of the university and help in alleviating food insecurity in the nation.
The about N5 billion investment is set to reform and revolutionalise the practice of agriculture in terms of excellence as it is also designed as a tourist destination and first of its kind in Africa.
With its nucleus sitting on an expanse of land adjacent to the university campus, the project is an integrated farm holding consisting of arable and cash crop farming, livestock, snailery, poultry, fishery and a moringa processing plant fed raw materials directly sourced from the farm and producing a wide spectrum of products ranging from moringa capsule, hair cream, tea bag, body butter, powder, soap, seed oil, packaged seeds and mushrooms.
Its satellites include farms in Ikere-Ekiti, Ijebu in Ogun State and Ibadan, Oyo State. The farm has hundreds of workers with the least paid the N19, 000 national minimum wage.
Among its assets are 110,000 mango trees, 500,000 teak trees, 310,000 gmelina trees, the moringa factory worth over N1 billion, 600 fish ponds with at least 5,000 fishes in each of them, a feed mill worth over N500,000.00, several hectares of cassava, maize, soya, groundnuts and an animal section made up of pigs, snails, turkeys, guinea fowls, quails and mushrooms.
The farm, also named Agricultural Enterprise Centre, has been designated by an impressed IITA as a research centre of Agriculture in Africa, “while UNESCO is collaborating with the university to resolve the challenges in education in Africa in the areas of quality, relevance and equity in education,” the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the school, Mr. Tunde Olofintila, said.
Babalola also bagged the Africa Man of the Year (in food security) Award in recognition of his contributions to agricultural development, especially through his investments.
Daily Sun noted during a recent visit that there have been additions to the investments in the last one year. One of these is the Moringa Factory which took off barely a year ago. Mr. Ajiboye Omoniyi, production manager of the factory said the range of seven products serve nutritional and therapeutic needs of human beings including curing over 300 diseases, while the oil, body cream, soap and other cosmetics contain an anti-ageing compound, zeatin. He said business has been good, with the products in high demand, even outside the state.
Another addition is the Mushrooms Laboratory. Mrs. Adesewa Temi, who manages the mushrooms processing plant, said the centre breeds two variety of oyster mushrooms – white and brown:
“The mushroom is made from a mixture of farm waste, cotton waste, cassava peels and rice straw which were pasteurized to get bacteria out. The spun seed is then inoculated and kept in a dark room for about four weeks and later taken to fruiting room.
“We only started harvesting in July ending and already we have captured Ado, Ikere and Ondo State. We are creating more awareness around banks and corporate organizations and the patronage has been tremendous and encouraging.”
Mr. Vincent Bankole, the Head of Maintenance Unit said of the 50 hectares of maize plantation 30 has been harvested this year alone: “Much of it is now ploughed into the feed mill on the farm to produce feeds for all our livestock – pigs, goats, guinea fowls, turkeys, broilers, cockerels, ducks, quails, fishes and so on.”
Another set of additions on the farm are the snailery, which has 500 snails, the piggery with 33 sows (matured female) three boars and 124 piglets; turkey pen with 30 birds, Guinea fowls – 200 birds and over a thousand quails. He said the quails and their eggs are sold, while others are still gradually being developed.
Of the piggery, he explained that the farm is waiting for the pigs’ population to hit 500 before starting to sell them. He said the plan is to process the livestock and sell them as fresh meat. Similarly the farm, he disclosed would soon start a fruit juice factory to process mango, pawpaw and sweet orange also cultivated on the farm.
An official at the fishery section said the farm sells harvested fish, pond by pond and restock immediately, so that the first set would be already matured by the time it was their turn to be harvested again. The fishes, mainly catfishes, are sold fresh and the surplus smoked and packaged for sale as dried fish. For this, the farm operates charcoal oven, gas oven and electrical oven such that it shifts to other alternative energy sources, whenever there is power outage.
There is a hatchery and incubator that produces fingerlings with which the ponds are supplied. Besides this, there is a cowpea farm, and honey production unit. Mechanized farming equipment including tractors, plowers, harvesters and trailers are constantly serviced under a shed by technicians and mechanics in the maintenance unit.
Adesina, during his recent visit to the university, said: “This is bigger than what I think. It is bigger than what I have heard and read about. But I am not surprised because anybody that knows Aare Afe Babalola would know that he stands for – excellence.” He expressed delight in the combination of academic training and entrepreneurship by the university, saying products of the university, no doubt, received total education that would make them self-sufficient and employers of labour.
He said the Federal Government would always partner with private investors, particularly because of its belief in a private sector-driven economy: “The real driver of growth is private investment. Government only develops the policies and provides the enabling environment. Obviously, for us as a government, we shall partner with Aare Babalola for the growth and development of the farms. I am quite impressed with what I have seen here today.”
Director of UNESCO’s Regional Office, Abuja, Prof. Hassana Alidou, who also visited the university farms, said the quantum of development and many other achievements recorded within a short period of the university’s existence were due to the vision and mission statement articulated in ABUAD founding document, Babalola’s dedication and the highly qualified faculty and administrators as well as highly motivated parents and students:
“We see this as a launch pad for increased partnerships in research and innovation into what works and good practices that we can scale up in the region. We are here to see how the UNESCO Chairs in Peace and Citizenship Education; and the other one on Entrepreneurship Education and Agriculture for Sustainable Development have progressed. We are here to explore options in sciences, culture, communication and education which we can use in our initiatives for the region.”
It was discovered that through the farming culture of ABUAD, every student becomes a fisher, already taught how to fish in an ocean of opportunities that exists in Agriculture in a country where the farming culture is fast eroding. Said Olofintila: “Every student here is taught to become a creator of jobs, instead of a job hunter, once he graduates.
They are entrepreneurs equipped with a thousand and one practical ideas on how to create jobs for themselves because they do not only farm and produce crops, they are also taught how to market the produce and get huge proceeds from the transaction thus rescuing them from the depressing situation of mass unemployment and the alarming rate of disillusionment it’s causing amongst our youths.”
Babalola, explaining why he set up the farm, said it was to make education relevant by inculcating the values and skills of entrepreneurship in students, most of whom graduate without finding jobs today.
Bemoaning the poor level of agricultural development in the country, he lamented that before now, Nigeria’s educational system, right from elementary school up to the university level, and the people generally have abandoned agriculture which used to be the mainstay of the economy before the advent of oil.
He noted that as a result of the university’s modest efforts to revolutionize agriculture, and particularly because of its achievements in this regard, it has continued to attract interest from such world class organizations as the IITA He revealed that the university would soon establish the Institute of Sustainable Agriculture, Agribusiness and Food Technology (ISAAFT), which when fully developed, would have core departments themes like Agricultural Foods and Resource Economics; Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering; Agribusiness Development Management; Community, Agriculture, Recreation and Resource Studies; Crop, Livestock and Soil Sciences; Entomology and Technology; Fisheries, Wildlife and Natural Resources; Food Science and Human Nutrition; Forestry, Land Use and Resource Survey; Agricultural Plant Design and Construction; Food Processing, Packaging and Safety; and Agricultural Technology, Mechanization and Engineering.
He said he was determined to revolutionize agriculture and make it a lot more attractive to Nigerians once again by organizing an annual agricultural exhibition where deserving, innovative and successful farmers would go home with N5 million each year.
Babalola regretted that the oil boom in the country had destroyed the agricultural legacy as a business and foreign exchange earner for the country. He recalled the pre-oil era in Nigeria when there was abundance of food, gainful employment and reduced rate of criminality:
“In the pre-oil era in Nigeria, there was abundance of food items. No one lacked food. Many people were gainfully employed. But with the advent of oil, which some people cynically dubbed oil doom, scarcity of food, poverty and unemployment as well as inclination towards crime crept into the fabrics of the Nigerian nation to the disadvantage and consternation of all.”
He said because of this unfortunate and condemnable abandonment of agriculture, the groundnut pyramids of the North, the cocoa and perm kernel of the West, the rubber of the Mid-West and the coal and palm oil of the East had all gone into oblivion. With ABUAD Farms, the octogenarian farmer said he hoped to inspire a renaissance of the glorious era.
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