Agriculture as a Business, and Bankruptcy Game of UNIUYO SIFE
It could be recalled that in my first diary I mentioned that ASACEI is meant to change the existing status quo for economic emancipation in the rural area of Ikpe Udok and beyond. This is being matched with actions. On the 28th April 2007, a one day Akwamfon Youth Vacation Programme was organised in the village by Akwamfon Sustainable Community Association (ASCA). A cross section of the youths from far and near even from the urban centre of Ikot Ekpene under the auspices of Youth Development Corps of Nigeria (YDCN), led by Professor Godwin Essien, the Director General of the Corp, came and joined with the rural youths to learn Agriculture as a business. Of course, YDCN, a youth arm of the Open University College of Christian Missions (UCCM), was established in response to the need to arrest youth restiveness in our society via industrial skills acquisition and paramilitary training to occupy them and instil discipline in the youths.Acquisition of the abundant agricultural skills would boost their morale in this regard. In the 
quiz competition to evaluate the activities of ASACEI so far, especially to see how far the students have learnt the skills of planting crops like Maize, Cassava and Fluted Pumpkin, one Miss Ndukeobong Dickson of the YDCN was the Highest Point Scorer followed by Miss Nsidibe Etim Akpan from the village, herself a student of a rural Girls’ Secondary Grammar School in the area.
In his introduction of Agriculture as a business to the rural dwellers, the ASACEI Project Manager, Mr Eseme Udoekong, defined Agriculture as a science, an art and a business of producing crops and animals for man's use. For him, Agriculture is a science, because it is a systematic body of knowledge based on observation and experiment; an art because it involves beauty, and a business since it entails profit.
Hitherto, the rural peasant farmers were not used to record keeping of their farm. They were taught at the event why they should keep farm records and how to keep such records like Farm Diary, Inventory and Farm Account and how to calculate loss or gain among other things beyond the scope of this diary. Those under school age, students from all levels of education, and adults from the community attended the programme.
On May 17th 2007, another history was made in the community via ASACEI project, when the Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) of the University of Uyo, Capital City of Akwa Ibom State, took the village by surprise. Thirty of them, led by their Faculty Advisor, Mr Essien Akpan Uko, arrived the village to assist the ASACEI Project Management Team to open a snail bank in the village. Snail Bank because from their prospective farmers will get their stocks to replicate the business at their ends. ASACEI goes into snail production for food and profit. Snail is rich in
calcium and other nutrients needed by the body. It is a kind of meat every home can easily afford.
What surprised the village most was the servant leadership exhibited by the University Lecturer, Mr. Akpan Uko who doubled as the UNIUYO SIFE Advisor. The University don showed that being a head is a function to set a pace for others to follow and not a superiority, to lord over and boss others around. He prepared the floor of the pen, dug the ground and loaded head pan with earth for his students to carry to make the pen. That done, he picked a hammer and took nails to make the cover of the pen with the help of his students. He was soaked with sweat under the hot sun instead of enjoying the comfort of his air conditioned room in the University Office. You
wouldn’t know he was a lecturer if you were not told. This was quite unprecedented. Everybody was challenged. It was a better experience and we learnt our lessons anyway.
No wonder the village youths don’t allow me to rest since then. They say all of them would make sure they start snail farm. I would come home to meet a number of them waiting for me to consult. This one says, “I am starting the snail business right away”, the other says, “Am set for Rabbit keeping SIFE told us about, how I can get the stock?” I would pick up my phone; call the SIFE President, Mr Caleb, saying, “Caleb, you have set the village ablaze with your gospel of entrepreneurship.” Caleb would respond, “Let it burn, that ‘s what we want”, while promising to come back to the village to stock more snails and source for rabbits for those interested in that enterprise to start with.
That way the youths are being motivated to consider farming as a business and the adults are being changed from the traditional subsistence agriculture to agriculture as a lucrative business. The
“Bankruptcy Game” designed by the UNIUYO SIFE and taught to members of the community with a package of the Bankruptcy Game donated to ASCA graced it all. The Game taught us how to think enterprising while being educated. How to make money, save money and invest money, get capital, buy land, receive loans, and how to make profits and avoid Bankruptcy in business. What a creative work of the intellectuals! You can only imagine if you don’t play the Bankruptcy Game of the UNIUYO SIFE. Ikpe Udok community is not only privileged to have SIFE in their midst, but blessed with the SIFE Entrepreneurship Community selfless Services at the instance of Akwamfon Sustainable Community Association that works in partnership with SIFE to combat poverty and underdevelopment in the area via ASACEI.
In the field of ASACEI farm, one girl volunteered and led the other man in weeding the farm and applying manures to the crops, for them to do well. The other woman with another girl engaged in planting of fluted pumpkins before it’s too late to do so. We plant, God sends the rain, the rain waters the field, and the crops absorb the moisture, making them to blossom. In turn, the crops respond to us, by yielding their produce and we get back to God, by singing praises, for bumper harvest, to fill our barns, toward food sufficiency and financial independence.
quiz competition to evaluate the activities of ASACEI so far, especially to see how far the students have learnt the skills of planting crops like Maize, Cassava and Fluted Pumpkin, one Miss Ndukeobong Dickson of the YDCN was the Highest Point Scorer followed by Miss Nsidibe Etim Akpan from the village, herself a student of a rural Girls’ Secondary Grammar School in the area.In his introduction of Agriculture as a business to the rural dwellers, the ASACEI Project Manager, Mr Eseme Udoekong, defined Agriculture as a science, an art and a business of producing crops and animals for man's use. For him, Agriculture is a science, because it is a systematic body of knowledge based on observation and experiment; an art because it involves beauty, and a business since it entails profit.
Hitherto, the rural peasant farmers were not used to record keeping of their farm. They were taught at the event why they should keep farm records and how to keep such records like Farm Diary, Inventory and Farm Account and how to calculate loss or gain among other things beyond the scope of this diary. Those under school age, students from all levels of education, and adults from the community attended the programme.
On May 17th 2007, another history was made in the community via ASACEI project, when the Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) of the University of Uyo, Capital City of Akwa Ibom State, took the village by surprise. Thirty of them, led by their Faculty Advisor, Mr Essien Akpan Uko, arrived the village to assist the ASACEI Project Management Team to open a snail bank in the village. Snail Bank because from their prospective farmers will get their stocks to replicate the business at their ends. ASACEI goes into snail production for food and profit. Snail is rich in
calcium and other nutrients needed by the body. It is a kind of meat every home can easily afford.What surprised the village most was the servant leadership exhibited by the University Lecturer, Mr. Akpan Uko who doubled as the UNIUYO SIFE Advisor. The University don showed that being a head is a function to set a pace for others to follow and not a superiority, to lord over and boss others around. He prepared the floor of the pen, dug the ground and loaded head pan with earth for his students to carry to make the pen. That done, he picked a hammer and took nails to make the cover of the pen with the help of his students. He was soaked with sweat under the hot sun instead of enjoying the comfort of his air conditioned room in the University Office. You
wouldn’t know he was a lecturer if you were not told. This was quite unprecedented. Everybody was challenged. It was a better experience and we learnt our lessons anyway.No wonder the village youths don’t allow me to rest since then. They say all of them would make sure they start snail farm. I would come home to meet a number of them waiting for me to consult. This one says, “I am starting the snail business right away”, the other says, “Am set for Rabbit keeping SIFE told us about, how I can get the stock?” I would pick up my phone; call the SIFE President, Mr Caleb, saying, “Caleb, you have set the village ablaze with your gospel of entrepreneurship.” Caleb would respond, “Let it burn, that ‘s what we want”, while promising to come back to the village to stock more snails and source for rabbits for those interested in that enterprise to start with.
That way the youths are being motivated to consider farming as a business and the adults are being changed from the traditional subsistence agriculture to agriculture as a lucrative business. The
“Bankruptcy Game” designed by the UNIUYO SIFE and taught to members of the community with a package of the Bankruptcy Game donated to ASCA graced it all. The Game taught us how to think enterprising while being educated. How to make money, save money and invest money, get capital, buy land, receive loans, and how to make profits and avoid Bankruptcy in business. What a creative work of the intellectuals! You can only imagine if you don’t play the Bankruptcy Game of the UNIUYO SIFE. Ikpe Udok community is not only privileged to have SIFE in their midst, but blessed with the SIFE Entrepreneurship Community selfless Services at the instance of Akwamfon Sustainable Community Association that works in partnership with SIFE to combat poverty and underdevelopment in the area via ASACEI.
In the field of ASACEI farm, one girl volunteered and led the other man in weeding the farm and applying manures to the crops, for them to do well. The other woman with another girl engaged in planting of fluted pumpkins before it’s too late to do so. We plant, God sends the rain, the rain waters the field, and the crops absorb the moisture, making them to blossom. In turn, the crops respond to us, by yielding their produce and we get back to God, by singing praises, for bumper harvest, to fill our barns, toward food sufficiency and financial independence.
