Over time I have spoken about my passion for Agriculture most especially animal husbandry, a passion I have been nursing since I was a child. Among many other things I seem to have interest in agriculture seems to be the one that I always find myself thinking about or doing at some point. I'm quite aware of my passion for anything that has to do with agriculture for a long period of time but it took me awhile before I could think of it as a career path.
I have always believed it to be a play thing, just having a garden or a simple yard to rare animals, just something simple but then as time goes on my passion for it grew and I began to see investment opportunities in this childhood passion of mine. Probably I would have studied animal husbandry or agriculture if I found out earlier but then it was not as if studying mass communication was a mistake at some point I was passionate about becoming a journalist till I wasn't. Probably someday the passion might ignite again but for now I don't see myself becoming a journalist anytime soon.
It is kind of weird to believe how easily we are controlled by our thoughts or desires, As a result of my passion for Animal husbandry during my days in NYSC camp which started from March 17 this year, during an empowerment program called SAED {Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development} A mandatory exercise for every corp member to join while in camp. The objectives of the SAED program is quite simple which is To eradicate poverty by ensuring corp members learn a skill among the ones that will be provided to learn during the duration of 3 weeks we will be in camp. Though provisions are made for corp members that chose to continue learning the skill which is called Post camp SAED training
During our time in camp, every coach for each skill that will be taught in camp will come forward and discuss about the skill, highlight the monetary opportunities available for corp members who choose to learn the skill, more like a skill exhibition before we all go ahead and choose a skill of our choice. A lot of skill was highlighted and to an extent I had a conflicting interest about what to choose at first, it was not because I didn't know what I wanted but I started developing the urge to try new things and you know how consuming that feeling could be.
Among all the skills that was highlighted few that I felt like trying out were, ***Shoemaking, Pottery, Cyber security, Cosmetology, Agriculture {Which was splitted into two categories, Farming and animal husbandry}. For starter I never knew animal husbandry would be among the skill that will be available, so before going to camp I already made up my mind about leaning shoe making but after listening to other opportunities available in other skills I became lost in thought but then my passion for Animal husbandry won.
When the class started I asked myself what exactly will be taught about animal husbandry in 3 weeks that would cover all the areas we need to know and if para adventure I became enticed by the lecture I might decide to opt for Post camp SAED training but then I wasn't seeing that happening at first but as the class progressed I became obsessed with every details of the course. We were taught a lot of things which includes:
- Catfish farming
- Poultry farming
- Snail farming
- Goat farming
- Rabbit farming.
- Disease control and treatment.
- Feed formation.
Though not every area of each of these were touched, so we we were given materials to study which was sent to us on WhatsApp. Among the list, the lecturer focused more on Catfish raring because he believed it had more monetary opportunities for beginners compared to other livestock animal raring which I agree. In every area there is high demand for a lot of things that has to do with catfish in different forms.
What he did first was to introduce us to earthing pond.
Which he believes to have more nutritional benefits and less costly compared to other type of ponds e.g concrete pond, cage pond e.t.c We were taught how to put baby catfish {Fry or fingerlings} into an earthing pond. In order to fasten our learning process We were taught how to smoke catfish, which involves:
Catching the catfish: which includes getting into the pond, it can be scary because you feel the catfish running into your feet.
| Catching | Catfish |
|---|---|
 |  |
Killing it: Which involves putting in a bowl, applying salt and covering it up for some minutes. Note: catfish is tougher than it looks.
| Killing | Catfish |
|---|---|
 |  |
Cleaning it up: This is the bloody aspect of it, it involves cutting open and removing the fat and intestine, Leaving just the eggs. Slicing them open doesn't been they are dead, which means there is still a high chance that they will spill blood all over you. As careful as I was, I was still covered in blood 😅.
Carving it and putting it in the oven: We wrapped it up in a circular form, put it on the oven pan that looks like a net but it is heavier than it looks. Then we put in the oven.
| Carving | Catfish |
|---|---|
 |  |
Here comes the end result after leaving it in the oven for 48 hours.
| Smoked | Catfish |
|---|---|
 |  |
Truth be told I enjoyed every aspect of the skill acquisition program, it is the one thing that made my camp experience more enticing, you should see how majestic we look on our exhibition day, we came with our finished products which mainly involved our smoked catfish and some chickens.
| Exhibition | Day |
|---|---|
 |  |
|image5|image6
When the result was collated We made the highest sales and profit compared to other skill and we also ate a lot of smoked catfish. I'm currently still planning on continuing my post camp training which will commence soon and hopefully own my own fish pond someday.
Cover image - 𝖣𝖾𝗌𝗂𝗀𝗇𝖾𝖽 𝗎𝗌𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝖼𝖺𝗇𝗏𝖺
All images used are mine