Moved by passion to inculcate the culture of farming in Nigerian youths, the wife of Olu of Warri, Olori Atuwatse III, has renewed the call to bring back school farming into the curriculum of Secondary schools in the country, as a way of encouraging the young ones to take to farming early enough as an alternative means of self sustenance.
Making the call at the flagged 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 whatever educational attainment in life, farming remains very key in boosting revenuebase of any nation and that of an individual.
She explained that her Secondary School ’Love Garden’ Initiatives which had been on in the last two years, was designed to stimulate farming awareness in youths irrespective of gender at a very early age, so that when they grew up they would have gotten used to methodology of nurturing a small scale farming even at their comfort zones.
According to her; “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”.
The Olu’s wife noted that the school farming could serve positive roles in building confidence and entrepreneurial skills in children, adding that as a farmer watching a seed you planted grow and blossom requires a whole lot of discipline, painstaking efforts and endurance, adding that these 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 could assist in funding 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 areas and by extension, the entire state.
She then advised 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 across the State.
“The more hands coming together to do this across the State and possibly across Nigeria the better for all of us”, she stated.
The Olu’s wife personally flagged off the farming campaign by formally planting some crops and trees at strategic locations on the farm.
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