Combining Farming, Education, and Technology to Reach Nigerian Youth: Idris’s Story
KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA – Idris Yusuf Aliyu, a 26-year-old farmer and student, is combining education, technology, and modern farming to transform his community.
Idris is a dedicated vegetable farmer, growing tomatoes, cabbages, and sweet corn on 500 square meters of land in Tudun Iya, Lere Local Government Area. In an effort to encourage other youth to find similar success through farming, he shares vegetable production knowledge through the popular Facebook group Noman Lambu, run by the East-West Seed Knowledge Transfer Foundation (EWS-KT) Nigeria team, and promotes vegetable farming as a profitable career path on his own Facebook and WhatsApp accounts.
Learning and Sharing on Social Media
Idris was first introduced to improved vegetable farming practices when he passed a farmer’s field and saw an EWS-KT Technical Field Officer training a group of farmers. He stopped and listened, and soon he was attending the training sessions himself. Eager to learn more, he also joined the Noman Lambu Facebook group.
As he implemented the new techniques in his own fields, he referred to tips and guides posted on the Facebook group and viewed posted videos of practical demonstrations, which reinforced the on-field training he had received. His use of improved farming methods grew, and he began to see exciting results.
At the same time, he noticed that while many farmers in his community had adopted the effective techniques recommended by EWS-KT, few were young farmers like himself. Most young people were instead engaged in efforts like small-scale trading. Idris made it his mission to spark their interest in modern vegetable farming as a sustainable livelihood, touting its profitability. Today, he consistently shares EWS-KT’s posts with his enthusiastic followers and posts about his own success with improved vegetable farming practices.
Education with a Purpose
Idris is also back in school, pursuing a bachelor’s degree in plant science with National Open University of Nigeria.
“You don’t go to school to study just to write a CV: you go to solve problems in society,” he said. “Before school, identify your people’s problems. While schooling, learn how to solve them. After school, implement it!”
Idris has identified one problem facing the youth in his community, and he is serious about solving it. While his plant science degree is still a few semesters away, his commitment to farming and his personal campaign to promote vegetable farming are already inspiring young people to buy seeds for the next growing season. “When youths embrace vegetable farming,” he said, “they sow hope, innovation, and a future that feeds the nation.”
Idris received on-field training under the DELIVER Nigeria project, which is supported by the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) / Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and is implemented by EWS-KT in partnership with Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and Wageningen University & Research.
