‘Sack farming ’ll reduce agric land problems’
By Kehinde Oluwatayo
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Youths who are interested in agricultural practices and do not have access to land have been advised to embrace sack farming as an alternative to planting on the land.
Speaking with The Hope in an interview in Akure, a sack farmer, Mr Tosin Gbedenuola described the system as a new and easy way of farming that reduces the problems of land.
Gbedenuola who said much land is not required to practise sack farming compared to planting on the land noted that a plot of land can contain an average of ten thousand sacks.
While saying the size of the root of the plant will determine the size of the sack, Gbedenuola said plant with wide root needs a wide sack.
According to him, crops like pepper, okro, tomatoes, carrots, cowpea among others can be planted in sack.
“Sack farming is a new system of agriculture that requires less stress and less space. You can practise it in your compound. All you need to do is to get your sack like cement bag, semovita bag or any type of sack, give them to a tailor to cut and make it to the size you want. Fill it with soil and arrange it in the space you intend to use.
“For me, the mixture of loamy soil and clay soil is the best because loamy soil does not retain water but clay does. After filling the sack and arranging it, you can start to plant” he said.
Gbedenuola who said sack farming is easy to maintain said the most important thing is irrigation. He said weeding it is not as stressful as when planting on the land and does not need a labourer adding that you can do your weeding alongside your wetting in the morning and in the evening.
While saying it can be practised along with whatever vocation or job you do, the farmer who is also a pastor said “I go there only in the morning and evening and I combine it with my pastoral work”.
To make wetting easier, Gbedenuola advised that some yards of holes long enough to go round the sacks be used.
When asked if sack farming could be practised in a large-scale, he said “someone who has a ten thousand stands of any of the vegetables is already into a large scale production”.
Gbedenuola who said the sacks may need replacement after one or two times of using them also said the strength of the soil would have been exhausted after one or two times of using and may need to be re-fertilised either with organic or inorganic fertilizer.
The man of God who studied physical and health education in school said he got the knowledge from the training he got from Industrial Training Fund and that he also trained on poultry and fish farming from Federal College of Agriculture Akure.
He said some youths who heard about what he is doing are already coming for advice on how to get started.
He however advised government to encourage more people to go into farming by making land available to boost food production.
He also advised youths who do not have anything doing to embrace sack farming to keep body and soul together.