….As VC promises To Turn Bushes In Agric Faculty to Farm Plantations
By Wole Balogun
Do you know that you can now buy some of those cherished farm products at much cheaper rates from our farms in the Federal University Oye-Ekiti (FUOYE) ? .
Yes, FUOYE now sell some very important farm products at much cheaper rates compared to what obtains outside, and we are still making our profits, huge profits!
According to the Director, Directorate of FUOYE Farms, Prof. Ayodele Fajiimi, the University community and members of the public can now get crates of eggs, kilograms of cow meats and palm oil etc, for much cheaper prices at our farms currently located at our Ikole-Ekiti campus in Ikole Local Government area of Ekiti State.
This was just as the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Abayomi Sunday Fasina has promised to hugely support the Directorate such that every bush within its premises will soon give way to a vast plantation field growing all kinds of crops for the benefit of both the University community and members of the public.
Prof. Fasina, who paid a surprise visit to the farm on Thursday, July 22, gave the charge to the Director, Prof. Fajimi, that all the green areas that have given the FUOYE Faculty of Agriculture a bushy look, must now give way to crops plantation.
The VC took his time to inspect the achievements of the Directorate and at the end, thumbed up for the University staff members working there as led by Prof. Fajimi and the Dean of the Faculty, Prof. Adeniji.
He was particularly impressed with the fact that the improvement on the farms is now serving as instructional materials and tools for lecturing the students.
He therefore urged the Directorate not to relent in working hard and promised that the University Management, under his leadership, shall continue to support them for more progress and success to be achieved.
In a brief interview with the VC’s Special Adviser on Media Matters, Wole Balogun, Prof. Fajimi gave an elaborate picture about the progress being currently made by the Directorate of FUOYE Farms.
He said: “Thanks be to God and it is to Him we give all glory. We began my tenure as the Director of FUOYE Farms in March this year and we were financially backed up in May this year. Within that short period, we have an established Poultry with over 500 chickens, yeilding over 10, 000 eggs a week, and monthly, we make over half a million Naira (N500,000) through sales.
“We have a pigry section too and by the grace of God, our pigs are now delivering. We now have many piglets. We are now giving the University a challenge to build another structure for us to contain them as we would soon have many piglets here.
“Within the short time that we have been given a tractor in a complete package, we have cultivated over seven hectacres of maize and in the next four weeks we have to put in cassava and and you can imagine what that would yeild for FUOYE. We also plan to landscape some parts in FUOYE because that is part of our work.
“I inherited very sick cows but now to the glory of God, by the help of the Vice-Chancellor and the University Management, our cows are very healthy and we are planning to get more. We sold some of them, while others die to sickness. We lost over three to four cows because they were all sick.
We have more than 22 cows now whose lives we had to save. We would have lost all the cows but for the prompt help of the Vice-Chancellor and the Management team.
“The University Management has also hired a Vetinary doctor for us to take care of the medical needs of the animals. We pray with the help of the weather, by the time you come in two months time, we would have no bush in our farms. We have started giving lands to people who wish to farm. We now have security men monitoring our fields.
“We are now killing cows every four weeks and selling our products at very much cheaper prices. They sell a kg of cow meat outside the University around N2000, we sell at N1600 and we still make our profit.
“A crate of eggs is sold for between N1800 and N2000 outside but we sell ours for just N1400 and we still make our profit. We sell our palm oil keg for N2000 while others outside sell for between N2800 and N2500.
“This is benefitting the University communtity immensely and the people from outside are also enjoying. I want to urge the University communtity to realize that since we are putting money into this farm business, we also need to make money out of it, so they should be patient with us. We need patient for it to really blossom and we will still enjoy more.
“In the past, we didn’t have a farm. Now, farm has become our part of Internal Revenue Generating avenues, thanks to the Prof. Abayomi Sunday Fasina administration. With time we will compete favourably with admissons in terms of generating the University IGR, that l can assure you.”