WEST AFRICA
Woman-Led Field School
Reaches African Youth
In a small greenhouse in Nigeria, young
agricultural entrepreneurs from all
over the country gather around an
unlikely teacher to learn about vegetable
production and farm management.
Yinka Adesola, though trained at the
master’s level in geology, is committed
to solving Nigeria’s food security issues
by empowering the next generation to
grow and sell more food with the tools
and knowledge she learned from IFDC’s
2SCALE project.
Adesola realized early in her career that
if Nigeria were to feed itself and meet
the needs of its domestic market, farm
yields would need to be boosted. And
with the aging producer population,
she knew that young people held the
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key to unlocking Nigeria’s agricultural
potential.
“I found myself on the farm because, for
me, I found agriculture to be fabulous.
I’ve found the most important thing
to combat in my country is hunger…
by learning to feed ourselves, we may
be able to satisfy our domestic market,”
Adesola remarked.
Attending trainings sponsored by IFDC’s
2SCALE project, Adesola learned how
to increase farm productivity with good
agricultural practices and integrated
soil fertility management. She was also
taught business management strategies
such as in marketing and selling crops.
In addition, the project linked her
with East-West Seed, a company that
breeds and produces high-quality
vegetable seeds for tropical conditions.
According to Adesola, “[East-West
Seed’s] tropicalized variety has proven
to be outstanding in terms of yield and
resistance to local diseases.”
When she returned from the trainings,
Adesola recognized that she could not
keep her new knowledge to herself if
she wanted to make a difference: “I
wanted to hold other trainings to attract
more youth to agriculture, to show that
agriculture is a lucrative business.” Thus,
the Entrepreneur Youth Multipurpose
Cooperative was born.