Faith Okeyedun was opportune to be enrolled in school by his parent from meager income they worked hard to get but his joy of having educ...
Faith Okeyedun was opportune
to be enrolled in school by his parent from meager income they worked hard to
get but his joy of having education was short lived due to lack of employment.
He opted to go into full time agriculture with the aim of making both ends
meet. He started cultivating indigenous leafy vegetables in and around his
house. Unfortunately, having been saddled with responsibility of taking care of
his siblings by his aging parents, his expectation of financial sustainability
was never fulfilled as his vegetable business often hit the rock due to poor
yield, low
patronage and discouraging income.
In his words; the answer to
his prayer came when we he came across IFDC2SCALE project barely a year ago, he
was involved in a series of activities/training in modern best practices/GAPs
involves in vegetable business. Having discovered opportunities involve in
cultivating improved seeds of fruit vegetable particularly tomato, Faith
applied all the techniques and knowledge acquired into his new venture and
immediately realized great result which translate to more than 300% income from
farming the same land size (compare to farming his indigenous leafy vegetable)
and over X10 yield compare to using local tomato seed and methods. Fortunately
for Faith, his first production harvest coincided with the time tomato price
skyrocketed in Nigeria due to scarcity and that helped me greatly to earn tens
of thousands of Naira. Faith now has
direct access to the markets and inputs. The coaching activity he has attended
through the project has also increase his business and technical skill. He has
trained over 30 youth farmers in the same trade in the past few months who are
working hard to replicate the same fit Faith has attained within a short period.
“In my family, we used to use firewood to cook
but now we can afford gas due to an improvement in my financial status and also
I can now help my siblings in their education pursuits”
More so, he now coordinates
the activities of cluster vegetable farmers in his locality and has turned to a
model to emulate by others. Having successfully master open field cultivation
of tomato, he is now looking at scaling up his production to many acres next
year and also incorporates the use of irrigation facilities and screen house. Faith
Okeyedun is one of hundreds of farmers who has benefited from IFDC2SCALE
project (Vegetable partnership) in Oyo, Oyo state Nigeria to initiate and
expand hybrid tomato cultivation (plus other vegetables). In addition, the project has also help in
developing the vegetable value chain through training and retraining,
stakeholders’ meeting and coaching activities.
Watch the interview with Faith Okeyedun on this youtube LINK. Moreover, do check in later to see what has become of another successful local veggies farmer in our next article on Success Story. Cheers!
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