For decades, a persistent paradox has defined Nigeria’s socio-economic landscape: a nation blessed with vast arable land, diverse climatic zones, and a burgeoning youth population continues to spend trillions of naira annually importing basic food staples.
At the heart of this challenge lies a deep-seated perception problem. For generations of young Nigerians, agriculture has been viewed not as a high-tech, profitable enterprise, but as an arduous, backbreaking punishment-a career of last resort reserved for those who failed to secure white-collar opportunities.
In Lagos recently, an ambitious national movement set out to dismantle that narrative at its root: the classroom.
Organized by Paradise Dynamic Farms Limited in collaboration with the Project Rebirth team, the inaugural National Agricultural Teachers Summit convened thousands of Agricultural Science educators in Lagos, alongside thousands more participating simultaneously from designated viewing centers across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The historic gathering which also featured an official Guinness World Records attempt for the largest attendance at an agricultural awareness summit in a single day, was anchored on a simple premise: if Nigeria is to build a sustainable food system, it must first revolutionize how agriculture is taught.
The Classroom as the Catalyst for Change
Setting the tone for the summit, Erica Okorodudu, the Executive Director, at Paradise Dynamic Farms Limited and Convener of the event, confronted the central question driving the initiative: ‘If agriculture is so important to the future of Nigeria, are we preparing the generation that will inherit it?’
Tracing the roots of public perception back to primary and secondary school classrooms, Okorodudu noted that while Agricultural Science is a standard subject, the realities of modern, tech-driven agribusiness rarely make it past the school gate.
‘We have dedicated teachers doing their best, sometimes without adequate laboratories, demonstration farms, equipment, or exposure to the technologies transforming agriculture around the world,’ Okorodudu said in her opening address. ‘Students learn about agriculture without always having the opportunity to touch the soil, operate a production system, monitor a crop, manage livestock, analyze data, or experience agriculture as a business.’
She emphasised that changing an entire generation’s outlook requires empowering the educators who guide them. ‘The future of Nigerian agriculture will be written in our classrooms before it is ever written in our fields,’ she asserted, describing teachers as ‘multipliers’ whose influence cascades from students to families, communities, and ultimately the national economy.
Central to the summit’s vision is transforming static school farms into active, commercial ‘living laboratories.’
Under this model, school demonstration farms will incorporate protected cultivation, drip irrigation, hydroponics, aquaculture, and climate-smart digital tools.
The goal, Okorodudu emphasised, is not merely to graduate students who understand agricultural theory, but to raise a generation capable of building scalable agribusinesses, driving processing and logistics, and guaranteeing national food security.
Shifting Mindsets: From Subsistence Farming to High-Tech Enterprise
Echoing this vision, Abiodun Moses Adeyeye, a soil fertility and plant nutrition expert from the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), argued that modernizing agriculture requires shattering obsolete stereotypes.
‘The old perspective looks at agriculture as an occupation that is not worthwhile-that if you study it in the university, you don’t have ‘something upstairs’ or don’t know science,’ Adeyeye observed.
‘In the past, people believed studying agriculture meant using hoes and cutlasses for the rest of your life. But agriculture is science, technology, and business put together. It incorporates mathematics, physics, and chemistry.’
Adeyeye highlighted how modern advancements, such as drone technology, precision irrigation, and screenhouse farming are yielding massive economic returns for young entrepreneurs. Pointing to the country’s economic drain, he decried Nigeria’s heavy reliance on food imports, noting that the country imports approximately 98 percent of the wheat it consumes-a stark contrast to nations like Brazil, which produces 60 percent of its wheat locally.
‘If we educate these children from the onset that we can produce these commodities locally using modern science, we can stem the trillions of Naira leaving this country every year,’ Adeyeye said. ‘When students realize that agriculture uses cutting-edge technology and offers a direct path to wealth creation, they will actively choose it.’
Agriculture as a Scalable Business Model
Adding a practical commercial perspective during the panel sessions, Henry Nnanna, an agricultural engineer, real estate consultant, and lead panel coordinator, highlighted how historical shifts derailed Nigeria’s agricultural trajectory.
‘Agriculture used to support 70 percent of our workforce before the discovery of oil,’ Nnanna noted. ‘When oil came, we neglected agriculture. And because we haven’t been practicing it the appropriate, modern way, the next generation failed to connect with it.’
Nnanna urged educators to teach students the micro-business opportunities embedded within the agricultural value chain.
He demonstrated how accessible, low-capital ventures, such as container farming in urban backyards, fast-cycle crops like cucumbers that mature in 45 days, or structured poultry production using point-of-lay birds-can generate immediate cash flow and support structured loan repayments.
‘Agriculture is a business,’ Nnanna emphasized. ‘It all depends on where you focus. By bringing together experts across technology, entrepreneurship, academia, and government, this summit is hitting the right chord to ensure policy recommendations translate into actionable commercial practices.’
He added that the communique generated from the summit would be aggressively publicized and delivered directly to federal and state policymakers to ensure sustained momentum.
Policy Integration and Institutional Endorsement
The drive to embed modern agricultural practices into school curricula gained major institutional backing from the Committee of States’ Commissioners of Education in Nigeria (COSCEN).
Speaking on behalf of the committee, Halima Sule Alhassan (representing COSCEN Chairman, Lawal Olalekan Olohungbebe) commended the organizers for prioritizing teacher welfare, capacity building, and practical recognition.
Alhassan revealed that COSCEN, which works in direct collaboration with the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) across all 36 states and the FCT, provides a ready-made platform to scale successful agricultural education models nationwide.
‘We organize monthly webinars for all Honorable Commissioners of Education to share best practices and successful state models,’ Alhassan explained. ‘If a state like Lagos or Akwa Ibom develops a highly successful school farm or agricultural curriculum model, that experience is shared across the platform.’
Following the success of the summit, Alhassan confirmed plans to table the challenges and solutions raised by the teachers directly before the national committee.
‘From my report, we can bring these actionable insights to the 36 State Commissioners and the FCT. Where necessary, we can facilitate the documentation and recommendation of these modern agricultural models to be formally integrated into national educational policy through bodies like the Joint Consultative Committee on Education (JCCE) and the National Council on Education (NCE).’
A National Movement Underway
As the inaugural summit concluded, the overarching message resonated clearly across the main hall in Lagos and the virtual viewing centers nationwide: Nigeria’s agricultural transformation cannot be achieved in isolation on rural farms; it must be cultivated within the educational ecosystem.
By equipping Agricultural Science teachers with modern techniques, institutional policy support, and an enterprise-driven mindset, the summit laid the groundwork for a structural shift-one that positions agriculture not as a remnant of the past, but as the cornerstone of Nigeria’s technological and economic future.