SD Farms expresses commitment to educating people on agric Mr Ikechukwu Ashiegbu, the Manager of Sustainable Demonstration Farms (SD Farms) on Friday said the farm was committed to educating people on agricultural techniques and how to eat right. Ashiegbu, who disclosed this to Newsmen in Abuja, said that the farm “is in business for the […]
SD Farms expresses commitment to educating people on agric
Mr Ikechukwu Ashiegbu, the Manager of Sustainable Demonstration Farms (SD Farms) on Friday said the farm was committed to educating people on agricultural techniques and how to eat right.
Ashiegbu, who disclosed this to Newsmen in Abuja, said that the farm “is in business for the rights reasons’’.
He said that the farm was not only committed to one type of farming but also to a lot of empowerment programmes and trainings relating to animal husbandry.
“We have about 20 youths including interns and Youth Corp members, who we train and we make the programme open.
“It is an integrated farm, so universities send their students to the farm.
“We made it open to the community and have actually trained a lot of community people,’’ he said.
Ashiegbu said that the organisation was involved in all types of farming such as mushrooms, snails, rabbits, fish and poultry, among others.
“SD Farms has been in existence for three years, but the Centre for the Right to Health (CRH), which is the main NGO, has been around for 20 years.
“We realised that the problem of poor health was not medicine, but that people were not eating right, so we began to teach and educate people on how to eat right.
“We also realised it is not just about teaching, we have to produce, so we can demonstrate what we are teaching people, so we started sustainable development farm.
“It is not just farming, it is an organic farm because we are coming from the health background; we are raising our animals and vegetable with no synthetic or chemical materials.
“It was as a result of our experience in the medical outreach that we got into farming.”
Ashiegbu said that a lot of people had been trying their best to stay healthy by eating good food and most times they search for substitutes to unhealthy food.
“People are careful of what they eat now, they are running away from red meat and thinking of vegetables, so the alternatives are mostly mushroom and dry fish.
“For now, of course our egg sells a lot, then oyster mushroom and fish sells too but our mega sales are mushroom and eggs.”
He also confirmed government involvement and support in their farming system.
“The Ministry of Agriculture has really supported us to an extent. At least we have gotten some subsidised machineries like solar pumping machine, residue crusher, tilling machine and so on.
“Of course, we got these at subsidised rates, they are not free, but we got quite a few things from the ministry.”
Our correspondent reports that SD Farms are used to teach various agricultural techniques and technologies to showcase new or improved crops.
They also serve as avenue to research and test new methods alongside traditional ones.
Source: NAN
Photo Credit: Google
