Onafowora
Ashoka Fellow since 2017   |  

Onafowora

Bic Farms concepts
Adebowale is increasing food security in Nigeria by reducing production costs for livestock and vegetables and making agriculture attractive and easy for more people to take up.
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This description of Onafowora's work was prepared when Onafowora was elected to the Ashoka Fellowship in 2017.

Introduction

Adebowale is increasing food security in Nigeria by reducing production costs for livestock and vegetables and making agriculture attractive and easy for more people to take up.

The New Idea

Adebowale has transformed the agricultural industry in Nigeria by introducing farmers to a new technology called Hydroponics which is the practice of growing plants without soil. This system helps farmers to grow plants in a nutrient solution root medium. The plants save energy from the nutrient intake turning it into vegetative growth, fruit formation and flower production. The nutrient solution is the combination of water and fertilizers, meaning that farmers get to dictate how much and of which nutrients they wish to give to the plants. Generally, fertilizers applied for both hydroponic and soil plantation contain the same three major nutrients; nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. In addition, hydroponic fertilizers contain the proper amounts of all the essential micro-nutrients and are usually in a more refined form with lesser impurities as opposed to soil fertilizers.

As a result of the fact that this system is soilless, the crops are not planted in soil, thus, no weeds or soil borne pests and diseases. The plants maintain optimum nutrient and moisture levels in hydroponic system, which makes then healthier, grow faster and develop the ability to be more disease resistant as they are not stressed by drought. The root systems stay smaller on so the plant can concentrate and use its energy on producing plant mass, rather than roots. This allows farmers to have more plants per square meter of growing a space. Hydroponically grown plants never get root bound, so they do not need repotting. The farm produce has a longer shelf life than soil-grown produce which means that it helps farmers with storage of farm produce and this system permits production of food crop that is far superior in taste, colour, size, and nutritional value.

With this new system Adebowale has helped farmers to reduce water usage, maximise land use, reduce labour requirement cut costs and produce more nutritious foods for Nigerians. He has completely reversed the way farmers grow crops. Nigerian farmers can grow crops faster and more efficiently with less input, conserve arable land, protect the climate as well as make more profit. He has also positioned Nigerian farmers to become more innovative by teaching them ways to improvise and use locally fabricated tools for their greenhouses as well as formulate the mineral nutrients needed to feed the plants.

Adebowale is completely turning around the problem of the herdsmen in Nigeria. By creating a fodder system that helps a group of cattle rearers raise and feed more cattle thereby reversing the violent crimes that happen around cattle grazing communities in Nigeria

The Problem

Agriculture is a major contributor to Nigeria’s gross domestic product(GDP) and small -scale farmers play a dominant role in this contribution. More than 80 percent of farmers in Nigeria are small holder farmers. These subsistence farmers depend on their efficiency in the utilization of basic production resources available to them. They make a significant and important contribution to the national product, about 99 percent of total crops output.

71% of the Nigerian workforce is engaged in agriculture. Over 90% of Nigeria’s agricultural output comes from peasant farmers who dwell in remote rural areas where 60% of the 150 million total population lives.
Even though agriculture still remains the largest sector of the Nigerian economy and employs two-thirds of the entire labour force, the production hurdles have significantly stifled the performance of the sector. The sector is an industry of perpetual struggle and indignity, plagued with labour, aged and ageing farming population. These small-holder farmers therefore remain poor, still depending on manual labour to carry out their various farming operations

The main factors affecting production include relying on rain-fed agriculture, access to lands by smallholder farmers, and low productivity due to inadequate planting material, low fertilizer application, and a weak agricultural extension system amongst others. Food importation has increased as a result of the fact that Food production has not kept pace with population growth.

Vegetables such as tomatoes has a high demand of 2.3 million tonnes annually, national production of 1.8 million tonnes, waste of over 750, 000 tonnes and an import bill of N16 billion to make up for shortfall in local production. The production and importation of cattle does not meet more than 60% of the actual demand. Most of the cattle farmers in Nigeria are nomads from the Northern region while the market for the products are in the southern part of the country. Incidentally, there have been fatal clashes between the farmers and their host communities in the southern region for grazing land.

The herdsmen move from one place to place in search of pasture, in the process they have encountered cattle rustlers and made complaints to the relevant authorities who fail to investigate the issue, hence they started carrying arms about for their safety. These herdsmen frequently trespass farmlands owned by people in their communities, destroying crops and other valuables. Attempts by farmers to stop them has met with stiff and violent resistance. Most times, the farmers are overpowered, injured and killed, while others are evicted from their homes. Sometimes, the herdsmen are accused of using these opportunities to steal, rape, raze houses and kill innocent members of the communities they pass through. The herdsmen have been known to wreak havoc in certain communities in Nigeria, but now, the rate at which they commit these crimes has increased exponentially.

Farmers find it very difficult to convey their farm produce to the market from the rural areas since most of them live in rural areas. This poses a major challenge as a result of the fact that the perishable goods get rotten before they get to the market

Young people perceive agriculture as a profession of intense labour, not profitable and unable to support their livelihood compared to white collar jobs offer. They think agriculture would not afford them to enjoy the pleasures of owning a beautiful home, fast cars, the latest gadgets and mobile phones like what their colleagues in white collar jobs have access to.

Although the government had designed several interventions but the Federal Government policies on agriculture had consistently failed because of lack of proper monitoring mechanisms.

The Strategy

Adebowale is spreading awareness of and technical know how in hydroponic farming, engaging young people to learn about soiless farming and embrace new non-traditional agri-business models, and fostering a local industry for material production that can help farmers fabricate and produce locally made green houses.

He has constructed hydroponic demo farms in four states in Nigera where he trains farmers and young people about hydroponic technology. Every week, in collaboration with different organizations, he hosts free seminars where his organization shares information about soiless farming. For those ready to go deeper, he offers in-depth train the trainers workshops once a month, currently held each month in both Lagos and Abuja, where he equips people to be able to start hydroponic farms and to train others in their locations on hydroponic technology and fodder systems. His trainings focus on how to use local materials for everything so that a farm doesn’t require great expense to set up.

Seeking to resolve the challenge of the tensions between Fulani herdsmen and the farmers whose land they let their livestock graze, Adebowale offers his training program free to Fulani herdsmen to persuade them to take up hydroponics as an alternative to grazing.
To reach a wider audience and to project a new image of farming, making it attractive for people to take up, Adebowale produces training videos where he can be seen farming in clean, urban attire and also uses social media to share the stories of soiless farmers.

To encourage people to build their own farms, he offers training packs with how-to videos well as the mineral nutrient and seedlings needed to get started. Similarly, he has a fodder system pack available for livestock farmers. He also consults for people he has trained to help them build and manage their greenhouses and successfully grow their crops using the hydroponic technology.

Adebowale is also partnering with universities. He worked with the University of Lagos to build a mini hydroponics center. Agricultural students who previously only learned about hydroponic technology on paper now have a lab in which to practice it.

Seeking to attract a new generation to farming, Adebowale takes a mobile greenhouse around to secondary schools to build the interest in agriculture early on in the youth, demonstrating that agriculture is no longer a dirty job but one that they can take pride in doing. After these trainings he helps the schools set up hydroponic greenhouses where the students can practice using the technology to grow the school’s vegetables.

Because the technology has to be locally produced and accessible to be affordable to people, Adebowale has innovated local adaptations and is bringing engineers and showing them ways that they can get involved with agriculture. He has developed a local method of growing tomatoes all year round by using a mixture of rice husk and coconut coil to grow tomatoes and other vegetables .This soiless medium helps plants absorb the minerals easily, its local, cheap and affordable for local farmers to develop instead of importing materials that are expensive. He is also showing engineers local materials that they can use to fabricate green houses and make it cheaper for farmers to acquire. He is developing ways to build green houses from local materials as against importing materials that would make it expensive and unachievable for local farmers. He is also negotiating with companies to produce needed materials for green houses at scale to lower the cost so that more farmers can be able to afford them.
So far Adebowale has trained 500 people, 80 of whom have started their own hydroponic farms. Sixty percent of his trainees are new to farming, attracted by the opportunity soiless farming provides. He has trained students at 22 secondary schools on hydroponic technology. Two of these schools to date have gone ahead to construct their own hydroponic farms growing vegetables for the schools consumption. His online videos presently have over 9000 views and have led to people inviting him to come train farmers in other states and countries.

Adebowale plans to spread to 7 new states in the next couple of years and to start a soiless farmers association to enable knowledge-sharing and faster uptake through leveraging the growing number of people taking up the practice. He aims to reach 100,000 farmers in 5 years. He also wants to spread his school program to 500 schools and develop a network of school clubs focused on hydroponic farming. Additionally, he is making plans to open source their materials online and to record the train the trainers course so that those who are not able to physically attend can still access the training. He wants to also start a television series to expand his reach.

He wants to help people buy in to the fodder system to spur the local economy since the fodder system has the potential of building and enriching a community. He envisions a community with 100 farmers using fodder system for their cattle, this creates the need to provide shelter opening a new industry for providing shelter and then this opens a lot of other industries that will provide schooling, markets, driving economic growth, employing people and developing the country.

The Person

Adebowale grew up as an only son in a University environment where his father was involved in agriculture. He was very adventurous and was self-taught, in secondary school he became the punctuality prefect. He read quantity surveying in the University after which he realized that with his University degree he could not get a job hence he decided to go back home and continue with agriculture. He started working in his father’s farm and this exposed the problems that farmers in Nigeria are going through, in order to help solve this problem he decided to use technology to help farmers make more profit and attain food security.

After graduation from the University Adebowale knew that he could not get a job in the corporate sector hence he decided to go into fishery with his father a lecturer as well as a farmer. The fish farm he set up with his father produced only 5000 fingerlings but he yearned to be able to produce more in 2003 he connected with a trainer, got trained but discovered that a lot of the equipment were imported, Adebowale studied them and improvised using local materials and at the end of his training he started producing 80,000-100,000 fingerlings and juveniles.
Adebowale started replicating his knowledge on production of fingerlings and juveniles he taught about 100 farmers about fish breeding and rearing, he got involved with Ijebu development poverty reduction program on fisheries where they trained people on fisheries and also gave a portion of land for fish rearing.

While doing this he started looking for better ways to make fish rearing easy and farming easy for Nigerian farmers. He would look for farms that are going moribund and help them to restart while doing this he connected to Afe Babalola University and set up their massive fish farm which produces 500,000 fishes, he also set up the moringa processing plant for the University. He realised that a lot of farmers were going out of business and decided that he needed to find solution to this problem , he came across a CNN documentary about hydroponics did a lot of research and realised that for hydroponics was the solution to the farming problems in Nigeria.

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