About mid-day next Thursday (May 1, 20140), yet another colourful feather will be added to the already well adorned cap of Awards and Honours of Aare Afe Babalola, SAN, the Founder and President Emeritus of Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD).
The new Award is the Africa Man of the year Award 2014 in Food Security by The Forum for International Green Sustainability (FIGS). The Award which has been copiously hyped on Radio and Television is informed by the great exploits Babalola has made in the realm of food security, the number of jobs he has created as well as the monumental investment he has made over the years into his ABUAD Enterprise Farm.
For example, ABUAD has acquired additional 1,000 hectares of land for its Agricultural Enterprise Centre so much so that today it has 110,000 Mango trees, 500,000 Teak trees, 310,000 Gmelina trees, a Moringa Factory worth over N1 billion, a large expanse of plantain and banana plantation and cassava farms as well as a large Mushroom farm.
It also has Large plantations of arable crops maize, soya beans and pigeon peas (cajanus cajan) as well as yam, just to mention a few. To ensure that the fruits from the farm are adequately protected to maintain their freshness, Babalola, only in March, ordered for a Fruit Preservation House, the first of its kind in this part of the world, from a Philadelphia-based American company, Harvest Protection Network. The Fruit Preservation House has since been installed.
On the other hand, the Agricultural Enterprise Centre also boasts of an Animal section made up of 600 fish ponds with at least 5,000 different species of fishes in each of them, a Feed Mill worth over N500,000.00, a Piggery, Snailery, Turkey, Guinea Fowl, Quail, Australian Ducks and Geese and Ghanaian Geese as well as an Incubator for fingerlings.
The university has also acquired new tractors and other equipment for intensive agricultural development while the Federal Government of Nigeria has declared an intention to partner with it in the area of agriculture to ensure food security in the nation. No wonder the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, dispatched high ranking officials of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture to visit ABUAD Farms shortly after his visit to the university on October 19, 2013.
The recognition accorded ABUAD Farms is not localized as its Agricultural Enterprise Centre has been visited by many dignitaries and organizations like the Embassy of the United States of America and Japanese Embassy whilst the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the university.
Besides, IITA has also designated the University as a Centre of Research where students learn many areas of Agriculture.
In his resolve to provide all-round education for the students and make them job creators after graduation instead of having to be pounding the streets, looking for white collar jobs, they are made to choose two of the above and work strenuously on them in addition to their academic pursuits. It is therefore no small wonder that just this Easter, Agricultural students in the University sold broilers specifically bred for Easter to many staff members and other members of the public.
ABUAD NEWSWEEK heartily congratulates the Founder and wishes him many more years of impacting the society.