Semen and seed bank, topmost solution to food shortage in Nigeria – Farmer Ayopo Somefun

….. I never wanted to be anything than a successful farmer. I plant trees yearly to celebrate my birthday.

Farmer Ayopo Somefun, the proud son of Late Ambassador and Mrs Yinka Somefun of Ijeja in Abeokuta is a man that is consistently committed to the production of food for man and providing succour for humanity. He has posited that if he is made the Minister of Agriculture of Nigeria today, he will consider semen and seed bank as a topmost priority.

The 52 year old Somefun from Sowunmi village in Onidundu ward, Obafemi Owode local government area , Ogun state believes that Nigeria has everything it takes to take care of its growing population and provide help for others.

From St Anne’s RCM primary school in Abeokuta and Ijeja High school now Gateway Secondary School also in Abeokuta where he completed his Form 5 West African school certificate in 1988 to Federal College of Agriculture in Akure ( IAR&T ) where he obtained his National Diploma in General Agriculture in 1992 and graduated as the best student in Tree crops, Somefun had always strived to be different in logic and approach.

Somefun who later gained Direct Entry admission to the prestigious Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta, FUNAAB to study Agricultural Economics and Farm Management graduated in the 1996/1997 session with a Bachelor of Agriculture degree.

In a chat with ValidViewNetwork recently , the proud Farmer could not hide his love for farming while relishing in his NYSC days and his venture into farming.

“I had my NYSC in Sokoto State at Zion World Prayer Mission, a church where I insisted that the only thing I could do was farming else, they should reject me”

“At the church , I was given the opportunity to establish a Broiler farm from scratch at Gwiwa low cost in Kortokochi road and I became successful supplying Double 7 supermarket which is like the SHOPRITE of any city.

“I won the male award for Sultan Maccido NYSC in 1999 and stayed 2 years for further study before coming back southwest for new life.

According to Somefun, he had never wanted to become anything other than a successful farmer. He was not an accidental farmer but an intentional and purposeful farmer whose drive was to solve the myriads of challenges causing shortage of food production.

“I had never wanted to be anything other than a farmer. As at primary school days, I have been farming in my neighborhood and while I got to secondary school, as at 1983, I was selling tomatoes , pepper , maize and vegetables every 5 days through a maternal aunty called Mama Ejide at Omida market in Abeoukta.

I was already making money as a secondary school student. Every weekend , I could conveniently buy Sketch, Punch and Concord newspapers. I think I did this for the whole of my form 1 to form 5 .

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I was a follower of State of Nation by Late Tai Solarin. I followed Dan Agnese, Mike Awoyinfa and many more.”

Farmer Somefun appears like a man who loves challenges, celebrates the victory and utilises the losses as a stepping stone. He believes in building success upon success and using failures as stepping stones.

“I was a lead speaker at my first ever secondary school debate where as a Form 4 student I had to stand against the school head girl, who spoke in favor of being a medical doctor. It was my first win in public debate and I never looked back.”

Aside from planting crops to salvage the ever increasing population from hunger, Somefun has been committed to the planting of trees, he has equally been instrumental to individuals and organisations planting trees to mitigate the effects of climate change and ensure environmental reclamation.

Sharing his experience in tree planting. Somefun went memory lane to share the beginning of his affinity for tree planting in the 80s

” I have a big Daddy who is one foremost foresters in Nigeria and a two time President of the Forestry Association of Nigeria. He is currently the BOT Chairman of Forestry Association of Nigeria. Chief James Bola Odebiyi, my big Daddy planted in me the love for tree planting.

”My Daddy, Chief Odebiyi was working at J4 and was a celebrity among the civil servants in the 80s and 90s. I simply wanted to be like him. Apart from his love for tree planting, he is also a fashionista but unfortunately I cannot be as well dressed as my Daddy. I can simply say that I got into farming as an heritage and into Tree planting as our family way of life.

Before I started my own farms, I had applied to work in 9 farms and worked in all the 9 different farms between 1998 and year 2011. Nothing ever attracts me other than Agriculture.

For Somefun, the problems confronting he agricultural sector in Nigeria are multidimensional requiring holistic approach. In his words :. ” Major challenges of Agriculture from experience are too numerous but I will like to highlight Farm and farmer security as a major one, lack of machineries to clear land, poor input availability, poor policy to protect farms and farmers, crude farming method, absence of standard of measurement of farm produce, middle men problem, lack of support system to mitigate against post harvesting loss, lack of rural infrastructure and many more”.

ValidViewNetwork reports that the threat posed by insecurity to both farmers and his farmlands in Nigeria cannot be overemphasised. From the effect of natural disasters to the invasion of farmlands by bandits, the farmer loses quantum of materials thereby affecting his economy.

Undoubtedly. Somefun is one of the first set of people to add the prefix Farmer and promoting it to the admiration of youths. He enjoys having the prefix in his name and asserts that the prefix was a product of an interaction with a don at the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta.

”I occupy my time with farming, meaning my occupation is Agriculture and I also take it as my career , so what stops me from letting anyone that comes my way from knowing and addressing me as a farmer. To be honest, whenever I meet people, I introduce myself like this, my name is Ayopo Somefun and I am a farmer.

Prof Eniola Fabusoro of the Department of Agricultural Extension of FUNAAB started the idea of Farmer Somefun and it has given me an identity. I am happy to inform you that many people are adopting the use of the prefix now and the list is growing daily.

I was co-host of a program with Prof Eniola Fabusoro of FUNAAB and while asking me questions, he was always refering to me as Farmer Somefun.

I am happy that within my space, I have been able to impact positively on lives and contribute meaningfully to the development of the country. Under Agrowealth Minders program with FUNAAB, 40 to 60 graduates of the University were under my mentorship for between a month and 3 months , living on the farm in a rural setting.

”I am a product of an environment and I believe none of us will leave this world alive, so we need to make it a better place. It is difficult for me to quantify my tithe because I have multiple streams of income, so every year, I dedicate like minimum of a million naira and more to buy seedlings of different economic trees and locate institutions where I can endow them to as a way of giving back to the society in celebrating my birthdays .

I have donated seedlings to my alma mater, FUNAAB, Odogbolu local government, a big private school in Owode Yewa called Treasure college and recently my daughter’s school ,Federal Science and Technical College , Ijebu mushin in Ogun state and so many other places. I am determined to do more and would like to use this opportunity to encourage many other people to adopt tree planting as a way of life”.

If I am made the Minister for Agriculture today, the three topmost agenda on my mind will be to put a structure in place where growing food will be a family agenda of every household in the country, stop bush burning and institute water cropping especially of all new building constructions and thirdly , I will create a semen and seed bank where we will have improved animal semen available for our farmers to do artificial insemination rather than depending on natural matting , seed bank because most farmers are having poor yield because what they grow are not seeds but fruits”.

According to Farmer Somefun, young ones should look for a skill to learn , sharpen the skill and let the skill pay their bills, ValidViewNetwork reports.