{"id":18373,"date":"2026-06-20T13:04:43","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T13:04:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.iita.org\/news-item\/our-lady-of-fatima-academy-partners-iita-to-tackle-regional-food-crisis\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T16:48:45","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T16:48:45","slug":"our-lady-of-fatima-academy-partners-iita-to-tackle-regional-food-crisis","status":"publish","type":"news-item","link":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/news-item\/our-lady-of-fatima-academy-partners-iita-to-tackle-regional-food-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Lady of Fatima Academy partners IITA to tackle regional food crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

For most of her life, Heritage Ajolo kept her dream a secret. When her classmates at Our Lady of Fatima Academy asked what she wanted to become, the SS2 student hesitated before quietly saying she wanted to be a farmer, before bracing herself for laughter shortly. In a world where her peers aspired to study medicine, law, and technology, agriculture seemed like a choice for the past over the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The IITA team with the students and teachers during a field visit<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That uncertainty got encouraged on a humid November morning when Heritage stepped into the IITA<\/a>\u2013CGIAR<\/a>\u2019s tissue culture laboratory in Ibadan, where she saw tiny yam plantlets floating in transparent vessels, growing without soil, sunlight, or the backbreaking labor that made farming look outdated in her community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI now know about planting in a clean, well-managed lab environment,\u201d she said, her voice steady with new confidence. \u201cComing here has made me proud of my ambition.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heritage was one of forty SS1 and SS2 students from Iwo, Osun State, who visited IITA to explore modern farming technologies. The visit, led by the school\u2019s principal, Reverend Father Frederick, was initiated to revive interest in agriculture and improve yam productivity in their community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur immediate community focuses on yam farming more than anything else,\u201d Father Frederick explained. \u201cWe have land and resources, but we lack the skill. We are very interested in learning how to produce yam seedlings to help our community and increase income. We\u2019re delving into the agenda of diversification and want to pique the interest of our students to have an appreciation for agriculture.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the institute, Julius Taiwo, Crop Vegetative Officer representing GoSeed, IITA\u2019s seeds platform, received the students. He led them on a guided tour through various facilities, beginning at the hydroponics lab, where they saw yam vines grown in a substrate supplemented with nutrients without the use of soil, and then to the leaf bud cutting screen house, where the students demonstrated how to cut and plant leaf bud cuttings to produce seed yams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI used to think plants couldn\u2019t grow without sunlight,\u201d said SS1 student Wahab Treasure, watching the vines thrive. \u201cNow I know farming doesn\u2019t have to be as stressful as I once thought.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Some
Some of the students during a practical session on the field.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Afterwards, the group visited the tissue culture laboratory, where scientists multiply yams, cassava, and plantain varieties in sterile conditions. Taiwo explained that the lab serves as a gene bank for preserving important crop varieties and producing disease-free planting materials that can transform agricultural productivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe tissue culture process allows us to clean, preserve, and multiply crops at scale,\u201d Taiwo told the students. \u201cIt\u2019s the kind of innovation that ensures food security for future generations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The students\u2019 curiosity deepened as they inquired about how soon farmers would be able to access these technologies and how they themselves could become involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response, Taiwo noted that IITA, through its commercial platform, plans to sustain engagement with the school beyond the visit. \u201cThat\u2019s why we want to engage them as partners,\u201d he said. \u201cFirst, we will set up a demonstration plot on the school premises for students and then extend it to farmers around the community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The collaboration aligns with Our Lady of Fatima Academy\u2019s vision of linking learning with community development. With IITA\u2019s technical support, the school aims to become a hub for seed yam production, to bridge the gap between research and production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the students boarded their bus back to Iwo, they carried more than notebooks; they carried a new perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Heritage Ajolo, agriculture is no longer a dream to hide, but the future she is ready to embrace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contributed by Anu Oyeleye and Mercy Diebiru-Ojo<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For most of her life, Heritage Ajolo kept her dream a secret. When her classmates at Our Lady of Fatima Academy asked what she wanted to become, the SS2 student hesitated before quietly saying she wanted to be a farmer, before bracing herself for laughter shortly.<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":18374,"template":"","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}}},"tags":[2763],"science-area":[],"program":[],"location":[32],"news-type":[],"hub":[61],"crop":[71],"impact-areas":[],"item-year":[203],"class_list":["post-18373","news-item","type-news-item","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-educationiita-news-no-2819knowledge-sharingpartnershipsschool-visitsseed-systemsyamyouth","location-nigeria","hub-western-africa","crop-yam","item-year-203"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-item\/18373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-item"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news-item"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-item\/18373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19613,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-item\/18373\/revisions\/19613"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18373"},{"taxonomy":"science-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/science-area?post=18373"},{"taxonomy":"program","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program?post=18373"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=18373"},{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=18373"},{"taxonomy":"hub","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hub?post=18373"},{"taxonomy":"crop","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/crop?post=18373"},{"taxonomy":"impact-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/impact-areas?post=18373"},{"taxonomy":"item-year","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/item-year?post=18373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}