The 2018 Global Farmer Roundtable is scheduled for Oct 16-17 in Des Moines, Iowa – coinciding with the week of the World Food Prize Borlaug Dialogue and International Symposium.
As the Roundtable approaches GFN is introducing this year’s participants. You may recognize Chibuike Emmanel from Nigeria. Chibuike is a GFN alumnus from 2017 and happens to currently be in the US for the Cornell Alliance for Science Leadership Fellows Program – so it was a natural fit for him to return, help out and participate!
Farmer: Chibuike Emmanuel
Country: Nigeria
Where is your farm located?
My farm is located in Port Harcourt, in the Rivers State – in the Niger Delta in southern Nigeria.
What does your farm look like? What is the size of your farm? What do you grow or raise?
Our farming?capacity has now grown to hold up to?5 Tons (5,000kg) of Catfish per production cycle. We?have also completed payment for a modern?standardized?smoking kiln that will enable us to dry our fishes carcinogenic-free even though we are yet to install this because of non-availability?of conducive space. We still run off the pond water from our fish farm to grow fluted pumpkin.
What are you looking forward to most as you prepare to participate in the 2018 Global Farmer Roundtable?
This year’s GFN cohort has a lot of young farmers from different countries so I will be aiming to cross pollinate?ideas with this diverse group on how we can further get more young people into agriculture as it is relevant to our work at the Agriculture is Sexy Network and for the food security of the world.
Because of my own challenges as a scarce-resourced smallholder farmer which is the same predicament that most other smallholder farmers face, I intend to?discuss and get feedback on the?new concept of?low cost/low tech modular integrated?vertical farms which I am developing?to?help smallholder farmers maximize scarce resources.
