MY JOURNEY TO EYiA ENTERPRISE FOR YOUTHS IN AGRICULTURE

The soilless farm lab Awowo Abeokuta Ogun state

Practical agriculture as an agricultural student in the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta is a required obligation for 400 level agricultural students of the university and that's the reason why 400level is referred to as FPY farm practical year we resumed the section educational activities back in January and a telegram group was created for all 1200 students from the colleges of Agricultural management and Rural Development, Plant science and Animal sciences which makes up the three colleges of Agricultural in the institution.

The group was used to pass information directly from farm manager's to students concerning farm activities, the group was created immediately after our 300level examination and shortly before we resumed the director for community based farming scheme which is the arm of the school directly in charge of the fpy program sent a link s asked everyone to fill it in some people did and some didn't and it later turned out to be the link to register for the EYiA soilless farming program at Awowo and I was one of the students that filled in the form

After our orientation week which took place during the second week of January students 200 students which were shortlisted to take part in the EYiA program left for Awowo soilless farm lab and those who weren't took part in practical farming activities which took place around the university and since I wasnt shortlisted for the EYiA program I joined other students to take part in the farming activities within the university which included planting of vegetables and also attending various Enterprise where we learnt about various aspects of agriculture and how those Enterprise can be established from scratch some of the enterprises included poultry, Hatchery, pineapple, oil palm and garri processing, piggery, pasture and range management just to mention a few there were a total of 12 Agricultural enterprises which we attended for 12 weeks while we were still carrying out planting.

The first batch of people who went for the soilless farming training returned on the 25th of March 2024 and before the end of our 12weeks program program within the university another list was sent containing he names of another 200 people which will be the second batch of those who will be going to the Awowo, soilless farm lab for another 12 weeks and preparations started and on the 13th April 2024 we converged around the university's gate for movement 3 mancort buses were provided by the university's management to convey students to the location

Preparation

As soon as the list of people who would be part of the soiless farming second batch was released we had to visit the cobfas office which is the center for community based Agricultural scheme for a registration process upon which we got a congratulatory message to show that we have been part of those who have been shortlisted for the programme and what to and what not to bring for the training

We set out from our convergence point at about 11am on the 13th of April 2024, the journey lasted for about three hours and we finally arrived at the EYiA facility here at Awowo and we had to register our luggage after which we started the registration process which involved taking of blood samples from each candidates presentation of a valid identification card including our nin national identification number thereafter we were captured and given tools for the training which included a pair of crocks, handgloves and the EYiA students handbook which contains the rules and regulations of EYiA

By the time I was done with my registration it was already 7:45pm and we had 1½ hour of lectures which took till about 9:30pm and we proceeded to register for bed space in the hostel this took us almost 1hour and by the time we were through I was so exhausted considering that I had to stand through out the journey and I had not eaten more so for the fact that there is curfew by 10:30pm I had to just drink garri in preparation for Sunday.

Thank you for stopping by stay tuned as I take you on the journey and my experience at the Awowo soilless farm for the next few months.