Tuesday 26 July 2016

FRESH DAILY NEWSLETTER 26th July - 2nd August



Good Day To You,


This week I have had various enquiries about if we are planning to OR currently rearing any chickens, are they organic? Local or free range? What my views are on imported frozen chicken and so much more.


Firstly, I find imported frozen chicken distasteful. Its insulting and demoralizing to think that in Abuja alone we have over 3 million birds of various varieties growing under varied methods for a population of just over a million people. That is in simplistic terms, 2 chickens to one individual every week. The capacity to produce birds locally surely should make importation of birds a silly silly idea. We actually don't need the government to place a ban on imported chickens for us, we just all need to say no to chicken pumped full of preservatives transported from thousands of miles away to but this people out of business. Common sense and common will of a people would always defeat an imposed version of reality. If you are not worried about the economic and health reasons, you should be worried about the taste. It takes a lot more effort and spicematics to get your preserved frozen chicken tasting like a bird that has been sourced locally without any preservatives. Why? Because the preservatives keep the birds inert. Immune to intrusion of any foreign particles be it pathogens or your lovely spices. It's a victory for physical sciences but a defeat for the chefs, foodies and culinary experts. Save your spices, save your health and buy your chickens from a poultry you trust. Trust been the keyword.


We at Fresh Daily currently stock just about enough birds for the consumption of my family and a few immediate neighbors. My birds are not organically sourced but are reared organically and semi-intensive. We feed them corn grown on our farm and never use growth hormones or antibiotics. For that reason it has been hard to stick large quantities to include with our weekly vegetable boxes. I have had alot of suggestions from qmonhst our community of running a CSA for the birds. This is where you buy shares on the poultry pen, that goes towards feeding and rearing the chicks and you get your dividends paid off as chickens supplied to your home over a two month period. For example paying #12,000 would yield a return of 10 birds supplied over a 2 month period. We are still working on the plan and would see how viable it would be. It would eventually all boil down to what the collective community of Fresh Daily users decide.


On the vegetable front, it keeps looking greener and redder. The Veronica Tomatoes have ursurped the Eva Tomatoes. Eva got to the end of her harvest cycle so you would notice a fuller, rounder and redder version of tomatos in your vegetable boxes for the next month. Our lettuce has been a resounding success. The mixed pack lettuce has yielded so much colour to our growing tunnel, that Taiwo my head Agronomist and I have become full time selfie-ists.



I hope you all enjoy your vegetables and the rain this week. Keep thinking and living green. We at Fresh Daily wish you health, happiness and blessings. Thank you for choosing us.


Best Regards

Kabir Onimisi ADEMOH

Friday 15 July 2016

CELEBRATING UNITED NATIONS WORLD YOUTH SKILLS DEVELOPMENT DAY



Training young people to become market gardeners and poultry farmers is an innovative answer to stimulating agricultural growth, reducing high unemployment, crime and generating income for self-improvement.
Our training imparts valuable and applicable life skills for all involved.

Entrepreneurial skills will give participants real-life simulations and applications to the agriculture sector. The impact of operating a self-sufficient agricultural training centre like ours will ensure a sustainable revenue stream for youths, while also creating a ‘real-life’ holistic training environment for participants. The Foundation currently has 48 young individuals that have participated in the training so far but plans to train 3000 individuals per quarter (every 3 months) in one centre which would equate to 12,000 youths in a year. In training one individual to create their own market garden, they have the potential to create employment for three individuals when we consider the multiplier effect this would mean we would be able to create a minimum of 36,000 jobs from a year of training in just one centre. Empowering the youth and stimulating the agriculture sector may provoke a high impact value on alleviating poverty and creating a life-long learning generation.

Growing food for our community is our skill and we join the rest of the world to celebrate the UNITED NATIONS WORLD YOUTH SKILL DEVELOPMENT DAY.

Tuesday 12 July 2016

NEWSLETTER 12TH - 19TH July - Touching The Soil

Good Day To You,

Staying in touch with the soil is the surest way to shape our world.
With the fast pace of life nowadays, it's easy to feel like we are been shaped by a world that holds little regard for our dearest opinions. There is more and more of everything giving us less than ever before.

Lucky for you and me, we have found a way to shape our lives, our communities and consequently our world through the most abundant tool available to us - the soil. The soil holds all of our collective history and information. The soil yields us our food and through reconnecting with the farmers and farms that provide our food we get to touch the soil again, appreciate it's beauty, and it's value to our existence.

Farming sustainably and bio-intensively means we respect the soil and try to preserve it's properties. The dangers of our conventional food consumption and production patterns is apparent in the pollution of our soil. We wouldn't need to think outside the box into hydroponics and genetic engineering , if we amend and preserve the soil properly as farmers.
This is not an easy task and at times it's not cheap. Fresh Daily constantly encounters losses because we refuse to use pesticides, herbicides, growth hormones and inorganic fertilizers when manure, composting and careful planning can still produce tasty, healthy crops for our families. We like all other organic farmers have decided to maintain the integrity of the earth we have to grow not bigger but better. So sometimes we would incur loss of crops, some weeks we would have less quantities but always, always you would be guaranteed tasty, healthy food delivered to your door.

The soil is our tool of shaping that world one meal at a time to mirror our own will and beliefs. I hope you enjoy your produce this week and before you rinse your vegetables take a moment to appreciate the soil caked on your delivery.
Wishing you all health, happiness and blessings

Regards

Kabir Onimisi Ademoh