Farmers have adopted agroecology, a branch of agriculture that encourages farming practices that reduces climate change, and facilitate the maturation of crops inherently without the use of inorganic fertilizer.
Farmers at a recent training in Abuja received training on agroecology and also aimed for government and private sector support.
Speaking to farmers, Ado Nasir from Jigawa state said the training has enlightened them on how vital and valuable agroecology is to farmers.
He said that adopting agroecology will make a facilitative environment for farmers to farm and make gains, adding that it will also improve employment opportunities.
He said, “This is because inorganic fertilizers are used only once. The price of inorganic fertilizers is high and you can’t make a financial gain. Agroecology will help farmers to grow with earnings.’’
Mr. Samuel Robert Kwasari, CEO of Build the Help Foundation and one of the facilitators said that his agroforestry project, located at Damokosa village in Kwali area council, FCT is set up to transform the description of the standard customary agriculture which is input based.
“For us, we want to practice agriculture in a natural way, which means we can get our inputs from our farm. Normally we call it no-budget farming because out of your farm, you’ll get your seeds as well as fertilizer.
“It is a productive method of agriculture where everything happens intrinsically as against the orthodox which is input-based agriculture”.
Speaking on the economic advantage of his program, he said that it is a three-way thing.
“First, the income of the farmer increases because the harvest of the farmers increases thereby making the cost of living better so the environmental impact can be seen.
“We have 10 hectares of land and over the past three years we have planted 45000 trees, the trees do not only take care of the environment but add to the farmer’s remuneration.
“Assuming we do 70% ability to work successfully then after four or five years the farmer is looking at nothing less than 50 to 60 million gain from the trees and this is something we can verify because, on one hectare of land, we grow about 500 eucalyptus which is one among 18 trees.
“If you take after 4 to 5 years, you can gather your eucalyptus and sell them for a minimum of 30000 nairas, we are talking about 15m in 5 years. On one tree alone, the farmer ends about 1 million nairas, 50, 000 naira.
“Because of the long-term pattern of normal agriculture, we can’t tell them to stop using them we want to show a better way of using fertilizer and through training like this, we will be able to educate on that without using chemical fertilizer that ruins the farm. The purpose of the govt is good but we want to do it the better way to show the farmers.
Programme Director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation, Joyce Brown, said, “We are scheduling the training for them to do away with chemicals, GMOs, and all sorts of things under the commercial agricultural structure.
“This is very beneficial to the farmers, they will be able to enhance their health and the ecology too.
“We have worked with many farmers and they have affirmed that chemicals are harmful to their crops. With agroecology, they have been able to see that crops can be produced innately.”
