By Ebele Orakpo

Research into ways of improving agricultural produce has been described as key to food security. This was made known at the Gberigbe Piggery Estate, Ikorodu during the graduation ceremony of the Asela Farmer Field School and Field Day organised by the Lagos State Agricultural Development Authority (LSADA), an agency under the Ministry of Agriculture.

Speaking on the occasion which saw about 40 farmers receiving certificates of graduation, Mr Olaoluwa Olagbodo, one of the two master trainers for the Farmer Field School in Lagos State described Farmer Field School (FFS)as a new extension technology still undergoing a test-run. “We feel we can replace the current extension method called T & V (Training and Visit) with this new method. FFS encourages participatory approach in all farm activities, encourages team building, it is a school without walls. The farmers come together regularly to decide and learn about the best practice for their production,” he said.

In her contribution, Miss Modupeola Dosunmu, the second master trainer for Lagos State said the programme which began in 2009, is a nationwide affair but each state of the federation has two master trainers. She expressed happiness with the farmers, saying “they have been cooperating with us and from their response based on what they are learning; most of them are saying they prefer this method to the other extension strategy we have been using.”

She said the Field Day comes up at the end of each experiment and depending on the enterprise, it may go on for as long as one year or less. “The experiments go on through the production season and at the end of it, they must sell off what they produced to be able to compare the two methods and choose the better option. If the research recommendation is better than what they were used to, they don’t just adopt the new method, they need to consider the profit margin, the time invested and the adaptability of that technique to their environment and production,” she said.

Olagbodo noted that there are 27 FFS scattered all over the state and “what we are experiencing here is expected to come up in each of the schools. This is the Field Day which marks the end of a research training session. This particular research training lasted for 65 days, about nine weeks. During the period, the farmers were exposed to certain training nitty-gritty of FFS that will enhance their production and we are expecting the same thing to happen in all of the FFS we have established in the state.

In this experiment, the farmers tried to validate two techniques, the local technique and the improved technique. If you tell them to use the improved technique directly, they may not be willing, but it becomes easier to convince them if they research into it themselves to confirm whether what we told them is true or not.”

Commenting on the results obtained at the end of the research, Olagbodo said the result favoured the use of the compounded feed as it gave higher yield and healthier animals. “If you look at the whole thing you will realise that in terms of health of the animals, there was a marked difference because normally, the farmers give them anything they see but in the compounded feed, we have ingredients that are good for the pigs,” he stated, adding that lack of record-keeping may make the farmers feel the compounded feed is more expensive but if they keep records, they may discover they are spending more than necessary in their own local approach to feed formulation.

The facilitator of Asela FFS under the National Programme for Food Security (NPFS), Mr Ola Oseni, described the project as successful and thanked the farmers for cooperating with him and the team. He noted that although bringing people together is always difficult, he had to find a way to motivate them so as to mobilise them. This, he did by creating light refreshment during classes.

Said he: “Before now, our normal classes were twice a month but because of the project, the animals needed to be weighed on weekly basis, so we were coming four – five times a month. In order for us to ensure that we see many participants, as many of them were not regular, I looked for a way of attracting them, and it worked. They were enjoying the classes.”

On the importance of FFS, Mr Oseni said: “If banks want to give loans to farmers, one of the yardsticks is that the farmers must come from an FFS. Another yardstick is that they should carry out experiments. The work of the extension agent is to help the farmers carry out experiments. We have experiments on cassava, maize, vegetables, fish, poultry, everything that has to do with agricultural produce. We have one experiment or the other that we can carry out and graduate them in it.

Asked if anybody can join the school, Dosunmu said: “If you are a farmer, you look for your enterprise group. It may be pig fattening or breeding. If you are into breeding, you join that particular group. This group is into pig production and fattening where they feed the animals into large weight/size and sell them off.” “

Mrs. Funmi Adeshina, President of Gberigbe Piggery Estate Farmers while speaking on the lessons learnt from the training noted that the project encouraged team building, regular weighing of the animals, proper record-keeping such as labour cost, feeding, medication and all expenses incurred.

The Baale of Asela, Mr. Solomon Fadipe appealed to government for help in the area of security and drainage. Expatiating on this, Mrs Adeshina said the estate was experiencing a series of thefts at some point so the State government was informed and they sent some security officers to guard the place “but unfortunately, they were more interested in farming than in watching over the estate so right now, we are practicing being your brother’s keeper. Again, there is the problem of drainage. We use a lot of water in the estate and there is no outlet for the waste water so we are asking the government for a major drainage that would take waste water away from the estate.”