To catch them young and stem hunger in the land, the wife of the Olu of Warri, Olori Atuwatse III, has renewed the call to bring back farming into the curriculum of secondary schools in the country.
This, she said, was a way of encouraging the young ones to take to farming early enough as an alternative means of self-sustenance
and banish hunger from the land.
She made the call at the kick-off campaign of a sizable farmland at the Dom Domingos College, Edjeba, in Warri South Local Government Area of Delta State, tagged; ‘Love Garden.’
Olori Atuwatse III highlighted that regardless of educational attainment in life, farming remained a veritable key in boosting the revenue base of any nation and individuals.
She explained that her Secondary School ’Love Garden’ Initiatives, which had been on in the last two years, was designed to stimulate farming consciousness in youths irrespective of gender at a very early age.
She said such a culture of farming, via nurturing a small scale farm even at Nigerian youths’ comfort zones would acquaint them with farming methodology.
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“This initiative is an intensive campaign for the resuscitation of School Garden in institutions of learning in Delta state and Warri kingdom in particular because it remains a feasible way of stimulating the interest of youths in practical agriculture at their tender age.
“Through school farms, students can also support in serving their immediate families, communities as well as the nation because they would be making money from the sales of the left over of some of these farm produce after they had been well feed,” she averred.
The Olu’s wife noted that the school farming initiative could serve positive roles in building confidence and entrepreneurial skills in children.
She added that as a farmer, watching a seed one planted grow and blossom requires a whole lot of discipline, painstaking efforts and endurance, which are traits of a future leader.
She disclosed the desire to take the initiative to the next level by planting some economic trees in the Garden that could assist in generating more revenue that would fund immediate needs of the school and maintenance of the classrooms.
While pledging the collaboration of Warri royal stool to some of the challenges presented to her by the school management, Olori Atuwatse III assured that more school gardens would soon be built in collaboration with both public and private sector across the Warri South Local Government Area and by extension, the entire state.
She then advised the Delta State government, as well as corporate organisations in the state, to “give further boost to the initiative by replicating the establishment of school gardens in colleges.
“The more hands coming together to do this across the state and possibly across Nigeria, the better for all of us,” she stated.
Our correspondent reports that the Olu’s wife personally kicked-off the farming campaign by formally planting some crops and trees at strategic locations on the farm.
