the original banana that God created had seeds seeds that are bigger than orange seeds the banana we eat today is an hybrid that's if you check your banana you notice there is one small line with those tiny tiny dots used to be big big seeds there is a high level of misinformation of What organic is in Nigeria a lot of things that we consume are hybrid we just do not know because the marketers know that if we say these are hybrid you be like ah this is GMO but it's not today's video is incredible because today we'll be sharing the story of a young man who is actually changing the face of agriculture in Nigeria currently looking at the 300 aces of land we F Sams bu is carrying out a soiless farming which is also one of the biggest soiless farm in Nigeria when we say soiless farming this is essentially growing crops without the use of soil I'm fmer Sam no team lead soiles Farm lab [Music] a lot of people probably be wondering can plants grow without soil in reality soil has three functions number one is to Anchor the root of the plant number two is for water retention number three is for aasan purpose if you look at Lomi soil Lomi soil can perform these three basic functions hence Lomi soy is the choice of growing plant or the choice of medium when it comes to growing plant if I am going to talk about soiless farming it is finding anything that can replace L me soil so once I remove Lomi soil and I bring in any kind of medium that is not ly soil automatically I am doing soiless farming so uh that is essentially what we do at soiless Farm lab using Greenhouse technology and soiless Farm mean to produce food vegetable Foods year round for our consumers if you look at this this is not soil and know somebody may be thinking is that not soil they using this is coconut and rice shaft mixed together if it were soy you need to be staying in my pal so this is coconut and rice shaft mixed together for planting then this is connected to the tank outside that is where the nutrient is missed the salt I talked about earlier and once you turn it on the water flows from here each of these has a hole at the bottom there are holes at the bottom where the water coming from the tank is able to go down all the way to the last layer so this is what soiless fing is in simple terms this is oakle red lettuce for those that do not know what this is this is parsley this is parsley I'm going to see if we have another one this is meat so that's what you have in other part of the farm you will see bell peppers tomatoes um lettuce that's Oakleaf green and other crops this is basically a net house so you could have a net house a screen house or a greenhouse earlier I said the whole idea is what do I want to control so for this we just want to control insect coming in and eating up the leaves so because of that we have an insect n we have no issue with rain so that's why what you have at the top is still a net that water can come in but in dry season the sun here can be so harsh hence it's a Shade Net that reduces the amount of sunlight that comes into what is favorable for the plants please we have this taste capacity for 2,000 plants and if we like we can decide to still go higher okay this is um arugula so we can decide to go higher because this is where we chose to stop but I can still go higher and use uh more space and if I want you notice there are big big spaces in between if I choose to I can put more which means if I just go by putting things in between I can go from 2,000 to 4,000 plants in this place if I decide to go times two I can go to 8,000 plants in this place this is B Choy my farm like this if you have this remember I said that here alone we have 2,000 so if that lettuce that 2,000 heads of lettuce but if you want to have ver the way the farm is structured is I must sell something every week so we will stagger it to have 500 from here every week so that week one 500 because things like let B tray and all takes a month so you want to stagger because your customer will not eat one week and not eat for another 3 weeks you want to ensure that you always have something available for them to buy this is a storage facility okay so I just want you to have an idea of the different parts of the farm now this storage facility if you notice this does not require electricity instead we use charcoal and water it's like a fridge so why do we have a charcoal storage facility not all our customers that we sell to have a cooling um Chilla or something in their um store or kitchen for whatever we are giving them so when produce are harvested rather than keep it in our code storage which you will still get to see we can bring it here this is like them keeping it in their own open space and this produce can be here for 15 days nothing is going to happen to them they will still be fine now when we Harvest Tomatoes we don't Harvest at full ripe we usually would Harvest at 70% ripe and keep that way whenever the customer gets it they still experience the hardness so if the customer wants their tomatoes to get ripe overnight all they need to do is get one ripe tomatoes and throw in their mist and overnight because of the release of ayine from that single ripe Tomatoes every other thing becomes ripe overnight so that is for this I'm taking you around to see any produce that we don't send out is turned into compost here so this is the composting area man you use it as manure back on the farm so this is another sorting room okay just like where we are coming from okay ideally would have one shoe cover but no producing here so of course you've seen where the purpose are coming from so we have purpose so here is again for more sting so when after sting like I explained let me turn on the cold room if anything is not going out today there is a cold room where they can store so if it is turned on this is a cold room again like another big fridge where the produce can be stored so this we have two sets of Cod Room the total Cod Room we have is about 37 ton capacity so if there are produce that will not go out that same day but the person we are supplying to has the place to store we keep them here our ID Supply days are Mondays Tuesday wedness day a bit on Thursday but I guess they just got a new customer that is asking for produce today if not today supposed to be the day they get to rest well done so these are people part of our past graduate coming from the farm is where they do quality assurance to say is this really okay because there they are sorting so before it goes to the customer is meant to come here but now that they are not busy that's why you have seen one of the ladies Miss root going down there going to check the quality there before they load it out so this is a place for quality assurance and all then there are some customers that we Supply to that we say oh can I get some things in powder maybe can I get the pepper some of it as um powder if they want powder this is for turning anything to dry it can dry blend and send to the customer all our equipment have a quality assurance company they all work with there are the kind of customers we sell to that can sue us for giving them substandard so they need to come and check check check so if they should come and say oh discard this weighing balance we must discard so it's not like you just do the quality assurance all by yourself no no no no no no so even the equipment you have to get part to to come and validate to say okay this is actually okay the van is okay this is good so if they come and say no do this we must comply this part is just to store things remember I said we buy things that we need for the year yes so the containers are just to store the materials we need for the year so that if we open them now you notice that most of the things have been depleted because sorry we are in um September coming to October so we just have 3 months for the year to be over by December new set of materials will come we start filling it up again so then on this side we call this area demo Farms so the demo Farm is any somebody may come and say oh test my seeds test my nutrient test my whatever we want to test we come here and test it first so in the demo Farm the first thought of production is not for the market so the first point is can this thing work the way this person is saying it will work this person has said ah this thing when you plant it it will give us it has this nutrient it has this we have a demonstration Farm where we test it out first so as we test we are now able to compare with what we have been getting before to say okay what this person said Is it true is it working like they said uh we take a lot of um data we take a lot of um yeah information from the plant how are they growing how much nutrient are they fighting diseases are they resistant to diseases we do a lot of that so that's why we call it demo Farms so in here we don't just do soil L at times we put the plant in soil to say okay let's see how you will come out the owner that the person is telling you us to buy your seed or buy their seed has spoken so much about how good you are let's put you in a bad environment so for example this is aene I'll show you I'll compare this to another Obin you'll see the difference between this person's seed and another person's seed the only thing I will not do is to call their names so you see the way the plants are looking there are a bit of um inability to combat some diseases so I'm going to show you another person's seed that also brought their seed that we are testing then you will not see that there is a difference in the result actually testing this on the soil yes so why are we testing on the soil because when you plant soilers most diseases Are soil born so we are not able to validate your claim because it's like keeping a child in a well protected environment say the child does not fall sick easily how do we know let's put the child where diseases are let's now see how good is your seed because if it does wonderfully well here when we take it soiless it's going to perform Miracles the seeds how do you can individual just bring in their seeds all yes any that has seeds to sell as long as they registered company we will buy their seeds this is another one from another one one from from that one a the same speci but a different company selling the seeds so a different maker so you can see that and these are same age these ones are not showing as much symptoms as that same soy these ones are already flowering was it planted the same time the same time those are not flowering yet wow so if as a commercial farmer I go and buy that and use a lot of that somebody else bought this when this one I started making money you still be struggling you are still waiting thinking is Village People meanwhile is the seed nothing is wrong but again we don't judge at this I'll still show you a third one we don't judge at this level yet because it is possible we don't know it is possible that this one that flowered early when we start harvesting that the amount of fruit we we get from this is not as much as what we will get from the one that didn't start early okay so you also check no we are going to wait until the end how much output did we get how long did he take the plant before he died how much stress and it's a whole lot of things and so you all keep keep keeping all of those data we keep keeping the data so by the time we are done the chief agronomist will now draw out a what is it called use his she to bring all of this data we now all sit down with the agronomist and the operations team to say is this okay okay procurement CD c this C this for procurement for 2024 because our seat per year that we spend on CD if I'm not wrong it's over over two or 300 million era seeds to run the whole year so if a company is fighting to get that contract we need to do our paperwork properly because once we buy the wrong seeds we have exhausted the budget for SE for that year so it means we have to carry the burden to the following year since this is like texting do you actually get it from the company for free to text no some companies will tell you it depends on the company okay so there are like all these ones now these companies gave us for free there are instances where the company tells you to buy a little so it varies is not one cup fits all so companies that we tell you to buy are companies that are like super established they are not the one looking for you you probably heard about their seed and you're like ah Baba I need to test your seed so many a Time the seed may be good for a different climb not where we are okay so just last question before we live here organic is very important to us as Nigerians I know GMO is is everywhere however how do you know the difference between what you are buying is organic and not GMO so we don't buy organic we don't buy GMO we buy hybrid okay so there are three type of now so hybrid is let me explain what hybrid is you know people that real I'm not really a dog fan so I don't know their different names but the person will say I carry this dog to go and cross with this other dog the child they give bir to is an hybrid so hybrid is essentially ah I went to your house I saw an orange that is big okay in my other neighbor's house but it it is big but not sweet in my other neighbor's house it is sweet but not big so I now say okay can I have a cross between these two for my house to have an orange that is sweet and big that is hybrid now for hybrid this is not Mago Mago inside lab okay our forefathers even used to do it where when you are growing yum or something you look at the one that gave the best result you save it for your next planting why did it give the best result at that point when that plant was growing it mixed with other plant meaning the flowers falize each other to come out with a better variety so why do we go for hybrid when you are buying an hybrid seed they tell you the qualities to expect okay okay maybe this fruits so let me give you an example there is a Tomatoes we do we don't have it at the moment that's exhausted for the year till next called beefstick for beefstick there are customers that want one tomato to weigh 200 to 250 300 gam not every tomato seed can give you that gram okay of beefstick so when we are buying we now need to check what is the expected weight per tomatoes for this seed is this what we want another example is I am growing bell pepper and maybe I am having AED or might issue I am going to look for a seed that is has been built to be resistant to that thing so that the work I have to do is reduced okay then another way to understand hybrid which most people don't know I know most people find this strange the original banana that God created had seeds seeds that are bigger than orange seeds the banana we eat today is an hybrid oh really yes the plantain is an hybrid that's if you check your banana you notice there is one small line with those tiny tiny dots used to be big big seeds my God so they're no longer in existence those big big ones that's why people would not say Bush banana when you go to the inside tick tick forest and you see Bush banana you cut it open you will see the B big seed those ones that have not been worked on I say that because a lot of things that we consume are hybrid we just do not know because the marketers know that if we say these are hybrid you be like ah this is GMO but it's not so how do you really differentiate GMO that's my the sellers will tell you you are not going to see it us conceal no the LA says they are meant to tell you what it is it's just like now you are asking me I'm telling you I'm using what hybrids I'm supposed to be the one to because you are not going to know how the way the fruit looks I've seen a lot of funny uh document on online say oh you can identify a plant but if it is very fresh no it doesn't show anything if it is very fresh maybe it was built okay take for instance C this we still see more cedes ofin how fine it is looking yes it doesn't show anything why is there no dot on it because there is a net house insect D PE on it if I remove the net and ENT should pet on it it is still hybrid but it will have dot dot dot it does you now say oh because there is dot dot dot it is not organic no and of course there is a high level of misinformation of What organic is in Nigeria a high level so compare that to this still same age yes wow now same age and everything what is the difference it's not like that is bad and this is better so what they simply did was I can't remember how they shared it it is still soil that we are using here but you know in in that place the soil we are using is not in a covered container like this so which means every time they put nutrients some of them will sip out in this case when they put nutrients the nutrient remains for the plant okay is not running away so the difference between what we are getting here and what we are getting there is here there is nutrient use maximization unlike there so now we know that okay those those ones there can perform as this good if they are in an enclosed environment what will now happen when we remove the soil they will perform way better so this and the second one is the same seed it's the same seed so it's the same seed but it's different from the first one it's different from the first one so what you've done now you've done two testing already for this seed exactly to see the soil and then enclosing the soil the soil to see okay how well would you perform in an enclosed space you can see how all the fruits are and they started harvesting here already wow started harvesting you can see how the way the whole fruits look like so so here they are pruning okay so if you look at this here we have mint then we have cherry tomatoes the reason you're having these on the ground is they are pruning so pruning is we are cutting off the excess leaves that we no longer need so that the cherry tomatoes can start froing quick so we are just trying to maximize space that's why we have uh mint on one side cherry on another side on the same trough now when when it comes to organic like I said a lot of people do not even understand what organic is okay there is a big misconception about organic big misconception and in Nigeria or not even worldwide there are three definitions of organic unfortunately these three definitions are not interchangeable so I need to decide which of these definitions do I want to stick with when I describe that I am doing organic the first definition of organic talks about the fact that my method of farming is not harming the environment instead it protects and restores the en environment that's why you realize that in developed Nations they will tell you if you are doing organic you cannot use tractor why can't you use tractor the tractor is destroying the soil on one part the tractor is releasing carbon monoxide that that carbon monoxide will react with water to form bicarbonates acid acidic rain that destroys the environment so I need to start asking myself is my method of farming protecting and helping the environment or not if the answer is it is not helping the environment based on that definition I am not doing organic that is pillar one I now say okay no I don't want to go with that let me go to number two impute Supply meaning the kind of things that I feed my plant or my animals where am I getting it from if I am getting it from a natural source it is organic if I am getting it from a source that is not created by Nature it is inorganic this is where most people like to stay and say we are organic or you are not organic so basically fertilizer exactly okay now the third level now you see that part of even saying because I hear people say things like so if I use man I am organic and I laugh I say what was the animal fed if the animal you got the manual from was fed from maze that was grown with fertilizer you are still back to deceiving yourself then the third one which for me is the one I love the most or the one I think I accept the most is what they call impute deposit meaning after you have applied these things what remains deposited in the plant or animal because if I tell you for example oh this my meat leave here is organic how would you prove it you will take it to the lab AB when you get to the lab and you are testing what are you testing in the plant what is deposited so if I test there is a range for what is deposited for organic there is a range for what is deposited for inorganic and then there is a range for what is deposited for not fit for consumption so you realize that when I take this to the lab it is what is deposited that validat whether this is organic or not so when we say organic we need to first ask our what definition do we want to work with for me the best and most scientific definition of all is the impute deposit number two can be the Environmental Protection the last is input how did you get your input because at the end of the day the reality is the fact that I am using manual to feed my plant does not necessarily mean the plant is healthy there are many other things what if I overuse the man what if I overuse the N oil to spray what if I overuse a whole lot of other things the plant is just like saying panador is healthy but that does not mean I should go and take a whole buet load of panador of course that would be my last headache that answer is that this is watermelon being tast so we have another person who is telling us that their seed is super super good and like the best that we have ever seen according to them so we have chosen not to argue with them you notice this is we just started planting here as more of their plants come we want to plant some outside some inside to compare if their plants can do well outside as they promise we know when we take it inside it will be Numero Uno so all of this to this house is to run an experiment so you just done two type now outside and inside so for the outside also some of them we have a mulching theme like this so what the mulching theme does is you never need to worry about weeding because it's only where you put hold that plant will come out from there the lab like I said he M where he stand the door there has the door in so once this is completed you start running in house in house test that doesn't stop the external test okay because the external test validates your internal test so it's not like oh once you do this is not a substitute it's just that now we can do it frequently without being worried about the cost your decision to make sure your T run your seat in the lab at least is it because you want to build the quality so for us number one is all of us on the farm I mean you can see that we all live here we eat this thing why do I want to poison myself first is my parents eat it we eat this things why poing myself number two is we cannot correct things by waiting on people to do things right we need to start setting an example and obviously when people realize that because your product are the quality you are earning more hopefully they would want to join okay so you see okay so this is how it can get to the top so it's not it doesn't have to be B is B on what is going out okay so the reason when you own the car the AC will start yes okay and this AC that is working is not harmful to the no just to cool it it's just so if this is harmful is the equivalent of asking the fridge in my house so it f yes so that just so that with this now you can actually transport your goods for 3 days and anywhere you want and it not get it won get SP know relaxation spot when Partners as students are back fully they can come here then at the back there you see some buildings coming up we are building shortl apartment because we have people who visit and say oh they would have loved to spend the night if there was a place so we figured okay let's do a 28 room apartment how long would that take to get ready no this should be the first batch they're already putting windows and um Plastering notot taping in another two weeks that should be ready for way any tourist anybody that interested in ag tourism can visit spend the night return we have a kitchen and I already told you you know we have a market I'm sure Grace and whomever it is I will take you around we'll take you around all of that we have a market that works six out of seven days in a week the seven days a bit skeletal so the market is run basically by the locals and part of the students who we've trained that have graduated I figured we could also do something by the side okay so we have a market we have a church we have a mosque there is a sport facility and yeah and hostels of course for partners we also have a health center land is 300 acres we are still working on increasing the size of the land but we are sitting on 300 acres at the moment 300 Aces yes okay so in terms of investment when somebody wants to somebody wants to come in to invest do you have an opportunity and no right now we are not running we don't have any investment opportun however instead what we have people do is because we have a lot of people that we have trained you can pull your funds together open your farm and have them help you manage your farm they are good enough to help you do that okay so I can open my farm with you here so you can buy land around so that outside of your 300 AC outside of the 300 acres you can buy your land set up I'm sure when you were coming in you would have seen a company that is setting up near the palm tree uh call them green Port so they bought land here because because we are here and right now they are setting up green houses those who we train there on how to set up are the people setting up there for them and they are going to help them to co-manage and their own Vision also is to train others and have more green houses there so they have an investment package that you are asking for there people that I trust and all of that I'm part of the what it head of their production team so they are running an investment package trusted and they are also backed by the government of the Netherlands okay but besides that let's say a Nigerian outside who've been looking to bring in his money let's say maybe have $100 million or have $50 million he wants to partner with you basically no that's what I'm saying they would rather they should rather partner Greenport so when they partner with Greenport Greenport um have a top board of directors management and all of that to run that for them we I am still a part of Greenport in the part of um production and Technical and all of that okay so yes basically but your farm right now that's not open in realistic term I know this is a business how how profitable is this model of farming it's very profitable yeah it's very profitable this is one of the big um the models they run in Italy us UK a lot if you look at the chicken Market in the US for example you realize that what the major brands I don't want to call any company's name but what the major brands essentially do is they take the what it called do CHS Doc and the whole of the nutrient they look for people who are willing to help them raise they raise the beds and all for them they come back and buy back that is the standard in the world but you realize that in Nigeria everybody wants to be the A to Z of their company and that does not work in ag Greek you need a lot of words the word now you need a lot of people benefiting from the value chain for you to actually make it it's not about you trying to run everything so there should be somebody whose job is just to run the nursery because they are good in Nursery there should be somebody who job is just to run the farm somebody whose job is just to run the logistics somebody whose job is just to fight for the market at the end of the day if everybody does what they are meant to do when the adventure person at the end sells that product the the money now trickles down through everybody so that everybody stays at the point where they themsel are a specialist not that I am so let me give you an example A lot of people find it strange when I say that as a farmer I am not very good at doing Noy these neries I'm not very good at that so why would I want to run a farm and run a nursery myself because what that simply means is where I am not good I'll be wasting money so why not focus on where I am good that's just the model and it becomes profitable because we are putting people who are good at a point to run that point not one person trying to be Alpha and Omega what are the few words you have to encourage Young young people out there who we know that our country is going through a troubling times many people have decided to go into wrong vices kidnapping and all of that but that's not what we want we want a country that is safe for everybody what are the encouragements you have for a young people and if it's okay I know in Nigeria we don't tell our age but if it's okay to you to tell your age you can also say your age so people know you're a young person you're doing this and you want to encourage other young people not to go into arm robbery but to choose a part that is Honorable also profitable yeah so I would okay yeah I'm 41 years and for any young person that is watching this I would say go get a job go get not even a job go and put your hands to work find work um work work does not have to be glamorous it does not have to be beautiful but you should not be idle uh if you look at the scripture the Bible talks about the fact that there was work before sin God bless my told him be fruitful multiply and all of that so there was walk before sin two we also need to understand that the concept of work that was given to us is Adam was not working to try to make it in life Adam was not working to buy a house so the concept of work is obedience to God not about what we can get out of it so find work and do the reason why a lot of Nigerians go abroad and make it easily is because when they get abroad whatever they find to do they do but when they are here there is pride how would they say a homie is sweeping the street how would they say a homie is Hing something whatever you can find to do do it start from somewhere start from doing something it is not okay to say you are jobless or you have no work it is okay if nobody gave you a paid employment but find something to do whatever it is and at the end of the day it will pay off one way or the other like I always say I I tell my young people this I say um if one person can make it in Nigeria and you don't make it Nigeria is not the problem because if Nigeria were the problem none of us will make it so the fact that one person can make it means that the problem has left Nigeria it has become your personal problem because the issues We complain about in Nigeria is not peculiar to you there is no power I mean we don't have power there is no water the same thing oh diesel price has gone up the same thing uh for price has gone up the same thing no good road it's the same for everybody but we chose to make it regardless of the reality of the country so you're making it is your job and the first thing you need to do is to go find something do even if it means working for free just not to be idle start from somewhere I I always tell my guys the first key to making it is accept the shame accept the reality of where you are the reality of what you you are able to do so all these things of oh you are using an iPhone 15 but you have no job why because what you could have used for an investment in yourself is what you are carrying around and you are saying you are broke what you lack is wisdom so find work find something doing once you start doing that thing be consistent give it to your all at the end of the day a better opportunity will come along in our next video there's even something more incredible that he's doing that is he's training about 4,000 young people on farming well that's it on this video don't forget to subscribe to the channel be a part of this community for those of you who are part of this community thank you so much for supporting me share this video comment subscribe and like see you [Music] guys
