SPREADING THE STEEMIT LOVE, WITH SUPPORT TO SET UP 200-STAND PLANTAIN FARMS FOR 10 YOUTHS IN MY COMMUNITY

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PREMISE AND CHALLENGE

“Africa has the world's youngest population”. That is almost becoming cliché. But it is a statistic we cannot ignore, one we should very much base arguments and actions around.

Check these out:

According to the UN Population Facts 2014, 226 million youth aged 15-24 live in the continent, accounting for 19% of the global youth population. More crucially, this population is “youthening”, with a declining median age. The UN Population Facts projects that “by 2030… the number of youth in Africa will have increased by 42 per cent.” Going further, the reports claims that “Africa's youth population is expected to continue to grow throughout the remainder of the twenty first century.”

With such youth bulge comes potential opportunities, and conversely huge challenges, in terms of social and economic development. This demography requires priority investment through mobilization that is incentivised and equipped for transformation. That way they are empowered to achieve higher productivity, increased income generation and rapid economic growth.

But are African governments and decision makers living to this responsibility? Hell NO! Enough isn't done to tap the resourcefulness and dynamism of these youths to contribute to solving the world's myriad problems, starting with hunger and poverty.

And here the stats:

Africa has the lion's share of uncultivated arable land: around 600 million hectares (roughly 60 percent of the global total), yet 239 million people in Africa are hungry, according to a report by three UN agencies.

Intertwined with the challenge of the youth bulge, more Africans are rapidly transitioning into young adulthood and continue to face the challenges of unemployment and underemployment, lack of relevant education and skills and limited access to capital. There is a very urgent need to soak up the expanding supply of youth labourers in need of work.

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HOW INVESTMENT IN AGRICULTURE CAN HELP

This need will be met quicker by promoting employment growth in sectors that can absorb many youths, especially agriculture. Agriculture offers a pro-poor growth, improves food security, raises income, and creates employment along the food value chain -- a contrast to non labor-intensive sectors like oil, gas and mineral extraction. Unfortunately, the latter is where most GDP contribution come from for African countries. This explains the vast inequality in distribution of wealth and resources.

Agriculture brings the largest employment of any sector in African economies. It averages 65% of total work force across the continent. Despite being the highest employer of labor, Africa's demography in most need of jobs have a truncated engagement in the sector because of various challenges and constraints. Below is not a comprehensive list of these challenges, but enough to point towards obvious actions plans:

a. Access to working capital for agricultural investments
b. Sustaining productivity of smallholder family farms to a commercial level
c. Secure land tenure systems
d. Limited availability and access to technology and equipment to boost productivity
e. Lack of access to regional and international markets

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WHAT I DECIDED TO DO ABOUT THIS

Obsolete technologies and techniques mean that productivity is low where the land is farmed at all, and present efforts by governments and international organizations fail to focus on smallholder farmers who constitute the majority. As a result the sector that holds the most potential for Africa’s economic and social renaissance is mostly ignored by young people. I feel everyone should do his little bit to contribute to solving this problem, hence this initiative.

I will tell a personal story I draw inspiration from.

When I started growing plantain in my rural community a year ago, I got the opportunity to interact with the grassroot youth in my village in southern Nigeria. These are my peers but they considered me privileged because of my exposure to life outside, and of course my education.

What baffled me first was the reaction I got from these young men, who helped me mostly with labor, often for fees that I would spend on transport alone on a typical day in the city. They reacted with bewilderment as to why I returned to a village — as they were all seeking opportunities to migrate to a city and pursue a venture.

I enjoyed explaining to them why you should prune watermelons down to the strongest one and not allow three sprout from one spot, and why you should separate the top soil and bury it deeper to plant plantain with in a pit. I rode on the high regard they accorded me and we had meaningful discussions that went beyond farming, to wealth creation and personal development.

Once a much younger one in the group told me he wanted to go to the nearest urban area to take up any job, and asked me to recommend a location with opportunities for him. So I asked him what kind of job he could get with his existing education and skill level. He told me he'd be content with being a pump assistant at a gas station. I asked if he knew he was talking about a N15,000 ($43)/ month job that took all of his time. He confirmed knowledge and even attested to another friend who got that doing the same job. But he added that it was okay. I was bitter inside of me. This is a kid aged about 18 willing to underutilize his potential because that was all he knew.

I took Sunday aside (that's his name) to the car, took a notepad and pen and began to scribble. I added up his potential annual income with the hours spent at the gas station, and did a comparative analysis against him just owning a small farm of 200 stands of plantain. Compared to being at the fuel station all day and night without any insurance or healthcare benefits, his income from the farm can be 120% more, with just about 4% of the time invested. That was it. And Sunday is like every one in my village who has large piece of land as inheritance, all lying fallow. But the owners are mostly in the cities scraping a living.

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HELPING YOUNG PEOPLE IN MY COMMUNITY IN NIGERIA RAISE THEIR 200-STAND PLANTAIN PLANTATIONS - AN INITIATIVE TO GIVE BACK VALUE TO THE LARGER WORLD… AND PROMOTE STEEMIT.

Sunday became a shining light towards an idea. What if I could help as many young people as I'm empowered to reach, to transform into efficient farmers with increased wealth through labor that comes with honor and pride? What will this take? I asked those questions. Now I am buoyed to answer this inner craving, hence the above project. Here are its highlights.

1. Training: Working with young people who have access to family lands that can be available for cultivation, I will begin holding a weekly (that's as much as my schedule can permit for now) training for my community in Akwa Ibom State of Nigeria. In that session we will explore together common best agricultural practices towards efficient cultivation, with focus on plantain planting. I will engage my Agronomist friends when possible to give the program some professional flavor, either in the form of study manuals or physical presence at the sessions. I have acquired enough theoretical and practical skills in my course of raising a very successful plantain plantation. I will give all I have to these lads and see how far it can take them.

2. Provide technical assistance to help them all start their farms by February when the rain will begin again. We will adopt the proven macropropagation technique of producing plantain plantlets, under good phytosanitary conditions, towards improved yield; one I have invested the past year to learn and implement. We will oversee the propagation of 2,000+ plantlets that will be given as starter kits for the participants. We will also make available 8 tons of organic manure that will cover their first cycle of farming.

3. In due course, we will ensure we connect these beneficiary young men and women to regional markets and off-takers so they can get optimum value for their produces.

4. We will gather lessons from the first experiment, improve on them, and set in motion an iterative system.

I am setting out to achieve all these in the respective phases, and I want to do this in tandem with spreading the love about Steemit.

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HOW WILL STEEMIT COME IN?

Steemit has become a part of my life now and I want to improve the community as best as I can. The opportunities are endless. The connections between this steemiverse and the outside world are endless. Just take a look at how My Plantain Plantation Got Steem-Powered-Up.

I want to use these meetups as an opportunity to spread the good news of Steemit to the participants, with the message “Powered By Steem” pushed out alongside, wherever it is reasonable. Example, I will wear Steemit-branded T-shirts (hey! I'll appreciate ideas for design and cool writeup), I'll print an extra page to the training manual that advertises Steemit. I want to use this opportunity to sign them up on Steemit too and give them basic technical and mindset lift to run with. That's it.

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WHAT WILL THIS COST?

DISCLAIMER: Hey! This is NOT a fundraiser post, yet. I think I have what it takes to get this project started, and hopefully will make enough to push it to completion and sustain it. It's a lifelong passion. If I need help, I'll call on you.

Thanks to technology it is really easy to get things started. I made an announcement on my Facebook that really got well received. I plan to go with ten but I've already gotten over 20 people interested in the comments and private messages. I wish I can cater for everyone. So that is taken care of. No need to print invitations. Ooooha.

I have access to a venue, I just need to talk to my friend again and agree on a date that fits her schedule. The venue is very comfortable, seats 30, and it has projector and sound devices. That's in the bag. I talked to @thatdamiguy about this project and he was excited he pledged a 10 Steem contribution, so I guess that will fix a thing or two. The manual will be a full color laser printing of a 25-page document, with spiral binding. $4 takes care of 1. Personally I have some little funds set aside as contribution for this. I'm sure the cost of ten training manuals and my Steemit shirt is taken care of, with mine and Dami’s donation.

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CONCLUSION

That sums the first phase of the project. I acknowledge this is not enough to solve the problem of hundreds of millions of people, but I also believe in the collective power of minion efforts.

“Little things make big things happen.”

• John Wooden

I feel like I represent the steemit community on this so I will report proceedings as they develop. And I will solicit your support where I need it. It's really easy after all to be of help, and a lot of people in this community have proven that to me in a few short days, from my friends at PALnet Discord Channel, to the #steemgig community, to the #nigeria family, and everyone who strives to create a better Steemit. You all are the MVPs. I'm doing this for us all, and also the numero uno of the pack, @ned.

Every liquid proceed from this post will go towards making these empowerment and promotion meetups a banging success. So upvote with love, and resteem if you want this to be better. More importantly, I look to your suggestions and inputs (starting from ideas for a Steemit T-shirt) in the comments.

If you aren't sure, just wait till I bring back the result from the first phase and earn your trust with that. Love <3

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Reference

Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). 2015. Africa Agriculture Status Report: Youth in Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa. Nairobi, Kenya. Issue No. 3

Cover Image.

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P. S. I also run a competition that preserves African folk heritages on the Steemit Blockchain. It is in its fourth week and we can say it is hugely successful, thus far. You can check it out here. Be thrilled by what we have brought to this community in promoting original, alternative content.