On arrival my colleague and I were handed the obligatory free t-shirt and agenda and ushered to the plush VIP seats at the front. We quickly realised that they were, of course, way behind time and were still doing the 'goodwill messages'. This is where various sponsors and officials make speeches, praising the event, talking about their own organisations and of course going through the necessary 'protocol' - very formally thanking every notable person in the room (often represented rather than actually in attendance). My colleague and I were announced, and we had to stand up and smile to the room, and from then on I settled in to what I assumed would be some long-winded speeches.
I was pleasantly surprised. There were some long speeches, with some great references to the fact that getting into sustainable agriculture would draw young people out of poverty and ultimately 'closer to God' (!) but generally the event was quite enjoyable.
Much of the focus was on YFarm - a project run by the Fresh & Young Brains Development Initiative (a name which I find quite peculiar - makes me think of eating brains for some reason... is that just me?). They played the YFarm theme song which was quite catchy. The main chorus is
Youth we go farm,
Crops we go plant,
Animals we go raise,
Food stuff for sale.
but quite amazingly the second chorus in part 2 is
Grow, grow, grow your seed,
Gently down the farm
Merrily merrily merrily
Life is in the seed
which was kind of rapped to the tune of 'row row row your boat'! Very funny stuff (for me anyway! I think it was taken pretty seriously by everyone else!).
Then there was some cultural dancing which was genuinely brilliant, and will probably be the highlight of my week. A group of young men and women with some seriously impressive moves, accompanied by some great drummers. I just wish I had thought to bring my phone to get a picture.
After the dancing the 'light' went (electricity) so we were saved from further tedious speeches and ushered out to the market place outside... the group would later have to go back to the speeches but my colleague and I used the moment to make our getaway. However, before escaping we had a look at some of the farmers' stalls and display tables and then I was selected to give an interview for one of the news cameras!
I'm pretty sure I was only asked due to the colour of my skin, not my expertise, and I warned them that I didn't have all that much to say on the matter of youth led agricultural projects, but they were quite insistent. So I managed to answer some questions about what I thought about young people investing in agriculture, what the challenges were, and what initiatives like YFarm etc were like. This was all going fine until they asked me whether I thought the government was doing enough to support young agriculturalists in Nigeria. I did NOT want to be talking politics on TV just before the election, especially as we are advised to avoid talking about the government at any time let alone in the lead up to the polls. I hope I managed to give my best politician style answer and talk without saying anything at all, but seeing as I don't know what it was being filmed for or when it might be used, I may never know!
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