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Traditional Ruler Provides Leadership in Urban Farming-Nigeria
Bennett Oghifo, in this piece, follows a natural ruler's love of urban farming and community development.
For natural rulers, administering the affairs of a kingdom is quite demanding, and this is worsened by an itinerary which spreads from cockcrow to sunset.
The ruler is expected to sit with his Chiefs adjudicating, listening to his peopleís worries and minding family business. Everybody is usually family, anyway.
But, not exactly so with HRM Oba A. T. Akinloye, The Ojomu of Ajiran Land who, despite his busy schedule, still finds time to tend his farm and train youngsters on the fine points of urban farming, a novelty in modern day Nigeria. The present practice is for amateur and professional to move to virgin lands or less developed areas to farm and keep moving as development approaches the farmstead. Kabiyesi absorbed fast advancing modernity and retained the core of his kinsfolk, which is farming and capacity building in the community.
Oral tradition has it that the communal land located in the Lagos territory between the famous 1004 housing estate and Epe, popularly known today as Lekki Peninsula was once inhabited by farmers who have since relocated with the influx of all kinds of housing developments.
He understands perfectly that farming not only feeds a people but also that it is a sure means of holding on to land for future generations of a community. Kabiyesi Akinloye knows this and has employed this wisdom in his domain. Discerning and seasoned farmers change with the times without losing anything to modernity. The Kabiyesi is just one of such and because of his level of education, he has not only embraced urban agriculture but has also figured out a role for the youth, who are his children, making them beneficiaries of his pet development-focused concept.
His philosophy is worth studying and more importantly emulating, especially by other natural rulers and land owning families.
The whole area known, today, as Lekki Peninsula (land) is now the area in 'vogue', particularly for housing development. This new attention is not only triggered by the absence of other available virgin prime land in Lagos State but also because the new interest in Lekki land has made land trade attractive to the land owning families. And, this is where the danger lies. Most land owning families of Lagos have sold every square metre of their land, leaving the family house and the land within its fence, if there was one, as their only landed property. Different land owners are beginning to learn from this mistake of the past and are doing great things to, literally, move their communities and family from the edge of future poverty.
His domain begins from the roundabout by Mr. Biggs to Ajah, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on the right and by the Lagoon on the left. Every inch of the land has been approved by the State Government.
Every child in the kingdom who desires to be trained in a vocation gets it through the Organisation for the Research of World Peace, (ORWP), a non governmental organisation set up by the Kabiyesi.
ORWP has an affiliate arena called the Millennium Village Centre, which has activities targeted at the youth and unemployed adults. The Centre has training and skills acquisition programmes. There are currently trainees in general Agriculture, computer appreciation, carpentry woodwork, fashion designing, textile technology and paint manufacturing. Staff of the farm train those majoring in general agriculture and the trainees use the farm for their practical work. The training period is usually nine months, at the end of which they are assisted to secure employment through recommendation to farms. This is the third set of trainees and there are plans to avail graduates of the scheme with take-off loan, to be administered by a foundation as a revolving loan.
He has brought positive development, no doubt. It is a socio-economic affair, because he could have developed an estate on the land or buy company shares with proceeds from its sale. But he saw the farm as something that would impact positively on more people who reside, in his domain and beyond, even up to Epe.
It is what sustainable development is all about and, in future, people would be able to refer to this legacy as a product of his reign as King.
The farm land is situated on the west side of the Eleganza Village on the Lekki-Epe road. It is about 16 hectres with only about seven or eight hectres currently in use. The land is covered by a Certificate of Occupancy (C of O). It's a good example of how to use natural resources to the owner's advantage. The Lekki terrain cannot successfully support crops like cassava, cocoa among others, but it would surely do well with fish farming.
On Kabiyesi's farm, there are 22 fish ponds, a poultry, piggry, and rabbitry in his urban farm.
Thrown in with this is an ultra-modern fish feed mill that produces floating feeds. The Oba trained as an Agriculturist at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) where he graduated in 1974.
His interest in agriculture goes back to his early days as a young boy in secondary school living the rural Lekki area. His first farm was on his uncle's land at Alapere in Ketu area However, in 1978 he decided to start a farm in Lekki, which he began with a poultry and planted oil palm trees in the area presently occupied by Chevron Nigeria Limited When he left the university, he taught at Oyigbobo where he rose to Vice Principal, and was transferred to head a school in Maroko in 1982. He went into teaching so he could have time to tend his farm.
His attachment to the farm is out of deep interest, because "even the traditional role is 24 hours demanding, but out of no time you have to squeeze out time to give some directives here people I use as managers and supervisors here are those I brought up myself Youth Corpers and depending on their line, particularly those who studied animal science I train them to the level of the farm and retain the dedicated and interested ones when there is a problem they come to me and from time to time, I call them to find out what is happening," said the Kabiyesi. "I can't say I run from my traditional responsibility, as much as possible I squeeze it in because it is my line". The farm has about 36 workers.
The farm started with 1000 birds and this increased to 5000 birds in 1986. The poultry presently has 20,000 birds, which are mainly layers, but during festive periods cockerels and turkey but there are plans to raise broilers in the near future. It was in 1986 that he started the Piggry with two pigs. "Although I am a Muslim, this is breeding which is part of the training I had in Ife, and I believe that being a Muslim does not bar me from raising animals for those who are interested, because it is strictly business."
He used his salary to pay the staff. The whole farm area was swampy and, apparently, there was nothing it could be used for. A small portion was reclaimed to build the first farm house, which stands at the entrance of the farm. The first poultry house was a makeshift affair that has been pulled down.
It occurred to him in 1988, that the farm needed to be reorganised and it struck him that the only way to do it would be to develop fish ponds. So, using the advantage of the terrain, the first pond was dug close to the poultry house and the sand excavated was used to reclaim the surrounding land and because it worked, he continued the process and has now hit 22 fish ponds with different species of fish, which include Tilapia, Cat Fish, and Megalopes. The Piggry was also expanded and now has 600 pigs.
The major challenge of livestock farming is feeds, particularly poultry, about 60 percent of the farm's cost of production goes into feeding. The farm initially got its feed supplies from established livestock feed manufacturers but it had to improvise to cut down on cost. It went into what is known as toll milling, which involves buying of ingredients and mill for a fee.
Oba Akinloye has gone a step further to procure a floating fish feeds extruder machine, which has been installed on the farm with a dedicated 300 Kv transformer, a main source 200 Kv electricity generating set and other electrical needs. The floating fish feeds is the latest rave among fish farmers because unlike the pillet feeds they float and this gives the fish enough opportunity to feed. The pillet feeds sink to the bottom of the pond and only the big fishes that can go to the bottom to feed on the pillet and on smaller fishes when they try to feed at the bottom.
Another challenge is that cat fish burrows in earthen ponds and elude croppers at harvest. These grow very big and if not noticed would eat up smaller fish introduced into such pond from the nursery. "We had a case when cat fish swam into to pond that was not used for cat fish. We did not know and went ahead to put in about 5000 and in about a week we did not see any fish we thought the source was not good and put in another set and the same thing happened."
This led him to erect a nursery tank, where the fish tank system of fish farming is used to raise fingerlings. It is also called the "flow-through" system, because water is run into the tank and then the tank is drained in a day or two. This is the system that is in vogue and can be used in the back of a house. When the fishes are big enough, they are then transferred into the earthen ponds.
The fish floating feeds machine, produced in the United Kingdom by Alvan Blanch, is capable of producing a ton an hour and the plan is to run the machine in shifts with a day set aside for rest. "We are targeting about 300 bags a day, and 300 tons a week. The bulk of raw materials are found locally in the country but an ingredient called premix will be imported. It cannot be produced locally because of the nation's level of technological development and because the birds are exotic they would require something from their own locality. "But we want to limit our imported components to as little as possible".
About N50 million has been spent on the machine so far and Kabiyesi suspects it would gulp another N10 million before it goes into production. The advantage of the machine is that it can process Soya, and groundnut cake, which is another primary supply line, since Soya mill is still being imported. The soya mill would be added to the feeds mill ingredient.
The farm will not only produce feeds for its fishes but will also sell to fish farmers. "Definitely we will sell feeds, more so that it is the type that is not yet produced in the country, at least on commercial scale we are going into commercial production," the Oba said.
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Activities at the farm are still being funded by the Kabiyesi who is still not satisfied with the level of performance, and every proceed is ploughed back to the farm. "I'm still adding more money particularly on the fish feed mill, which has taken a lot of funds".
Oba Akinloye advised aspiring fish farmers to, as a first rule, be interested in fish farming. "Our mission is to contribute to the protein intake of Nigerians."
