Land preparation and planting
Clearing and preparing the ground, then planting the season’s crop.
Under education
School demonstration farms
Agriculture on the timetable rather than in a textbook. Pupils work a real farm through a real season, and leave school with a skill that feeds a family.
What it is
Practical agriculture, inside the curriculum.
The demonstration farm is an integrated approach to education: agriculture is built into the school curriculum so that students gain hands-on knowledge and experience of every part of it. Pupils and students take an active part at each stage.
Weed control and maintenance
Keeping a crop alive through a season, which is where most of the learning is.
Harvesting
Bringing in what the school has grown.
Marketing
Selling the produce — the part of farming that is usually never taught.
Storage and post-harvest handling
Keeping a harvest until it is worth something.
Food, and a skill
What is grown supports the school that grew it, and the skill outlasts the classroom.
Why it matters
An answer to graduate unemployment.
The initiative is meant to make graduates self-reliant, and better equipped to face unemployment and the over-dependence on conventional white-collar work that follows it.
Through this hands-on approach, agriculture stops being a classroom subject and becomes a practical skill — one that promotes food security and self-reliance in the communities our schools serve. Our registered farming company, CORA Farms Nigeria Ltd, works the same ground on a commercial scale and trains rural farmers alongside the pupils.
Support the work
A few hundred dollars started a business. $40,000 started a programme.
CORAfrica is a registered 501(c)(3) in the United States, so gifts from US donors are tax-deductible. Give monthly, and we can plan.