Amidst rising food crises in the country, farmers are beginning to employ innovative ways in creating food security and building capacities of young farmers.
Inside Awowo village in Ewekoro local government of Ogun State harbors various farm settlements and farm companies where young farmers are turning entrepreneurs in Agribusiness.
Soilless Farm lab was our point of call, a farm located about 6kilometres off road, situated on a large mass of land numbering about 150 acres and still expanding. Home to various smaller companies, one of which is EXITONICS Limited.
The farm lab also has an Enterprise For Youths In Agriculture, a program designed to find solutions to youths unemployment in Africa. This admits about one thousand people every quarter and has trained more than 13,000 students since inception.
People come for three months. Priorities are given to students, IT students are admitted from the six geopolitical zones. Various individuals who had undergone the training process, creates their own company beginning their own production making use of soilless structure.
As a journalists always on the road, I cannot but ask Jerry to personally share his work and vision with me.
Jerry Apeh, the managing director of Exitonics Limited, says his company is where innovations exists to produce food crops majorly vegetables.
Exitonics is an Agricultural company located within the premise of Soilless farm lab where vegetables such as, Tomatoes, Red and Yellow peppers and lettuces are grown without the use of soils.
They intend to tackle food insecurity, food scarcity and do a lot of capacity building with farmers, educationist and the rest.
Exitonics Farm Limited among others use the structure created by Soilless to build and develop their products thereby paying back production costs which is land rent and other amenities enjoyed through Soilless.
Jerry and his team brings food to live due to their belief that if we can get it at a very young age, then it is a good one for the future. This makes him and his team to implement sustainable agriculture, planning and planting for the future, to grow food using other Agro-elements.
In the words of Jerry, “One of the things we do here is we don’t use soil, we do soilless farming. That’s the interesting part because we evolved from the old way of farming to Agribusiness.”
The innovative exploits of Exitonics is the use of Bio char, rice oil, coco peat, bran, instead of the use of soil to plant.
Bio char is a form of charcoal application, known to improve soil nutrient availability, aeration in soil, and soil water filtration.
They are optimistic of gains because of their diversion from the conventional way of doing farming which has not taken the older generations of farmers anywhere, reason they mix agriculture with Business.
“What we do is Agribusiness, agriculture is the oxygen of Africa.”
Jerry expressed how creating a screen house costs about 3.5million Naira while the Green House costs 5-6million to build. The green houses are created to determine the amount of sun and air received by the plants. Most of nursery process of germination is done in the green house. He hopes that with more research they will start using pebble stones to grow vegetables.
“We are doing a lot in research and seeing how best we can explore. We are growing to see how we can use pebble stones and the likes.
Sharing a little history of how his quest for Agricultural innovation started, he described his journey to Jigawa, one of the biggest producers of rice in Nigeria and Kogi state one of the biggest producers of cashew, this according to him triggered his quest to make use of many bi products that people don’t really place value on.
The farm lab has blocks of hostels for both male and female training, market, Hall with a capacity of 1,000 persons, recreational centers such as football pitch, basketball, health center in it’s properly mapped out premises.
Exitonics hopes to improve more in seeing many others sensitized.
Discussing about pest control, and banditry, he expressed that nothing of such occurs. “We don’t experience pests and diseases and we have never experienced theft nor banditry. The security is tight and we have various security outfits on ground, the Amotekuns, Soldiers and Legions.
Jerry Apeh explaining the process of soilless farming
Unlike the tomatoes and peppers which are produced in large quantities, Jerry noted that Lettuces are produced based on demands while on the mode of marketing their products, they reach their target audience through social media with the hope of doing more like having an official websites and the rest.
