Contest| "Living in the Agricultural World #1"

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Nothing boosts my confidence like when I have enough foodstuffs in my house. I feel so comfortable, hopeful and at the same time happy that, no matter what, my family will have something to eat. But when there's no food, maybe arising from food scarcity or one problem or the other, it brings hopelessness and worries.

Whenever foodstuffs get finished in the house, I quickly make a list to replace them. In a situation where there's no money to buy in bulk or if there's any problem, I quickly buy the ones that are very important or the ones needed at the moment.

For example, during the naira scarcity, I had rice at home and a few ingredients. Since there was no cash to buy other foodstuffs, I used the small cash we had to buy ingredients for rice and then beverages that the children usually eat often.

Apart from buying from the local markets around me, I get some stuff from my village. For example, garri. I have farms in the village given to me by my father-in-law every year to cultivate. I mostly plant cassava. When the cassava matures, I will travel to the village and process it into garri. Or sometimes, I pay someone to do that under the supervision of my parents' in-laws. My husband and I also grow plantains in the village. Whenever they fruit and mature, my father-in-law will cut them and send them to us.

I also buy fish, crayfish, oil and other stuff from my village. I give my mother or my mother-in-law money to buy them at a bit cheaper rate in the village and send them to me. We also buy rice from the village too, because it's cheaper there than the food sold in bigger fancy shops here in the city.

In the part of the country I dwell in, many people consume rice. Rice is easier and cheaper to cook. There are many methods of preparing rice which make it easier and affordable for people to prefer to eat it more. Even on occasions/patties, you find rice being served to guests as it's also a bit cheaper.

My children mostly eat rice on almost a daily basis. That makes me prepare all kinds of ranging from Nigerian jollof rice, rice and stew, coconut rice, fried rice, MTN rice, pepper soup rice etc.

I have a farm in the village. Since I don't have a space here in the city, I grow crops using bags. I have planted pepper and cucumbers using bags. In the previous place where I lived previously, I had space to grow vegetables such as pumpkin, water leaves, scent leaves and other crops.

It was really of a great help to me. Whenever I needed vegetables to garnish food or wanted to prepare a little meal, I used to get vegetable leaves there. Apart from that, I planted pepper, which made it easier to prepare sauce for my family whenever I needed it.

Having or growing a farm or garden is very important because you will always have a place to fall back to whenever there's scarcity. It will also save you some money.

I'm inviting
@lexz
@realitytrend
@chilaw

Cc;
@ninapenda

^{All pictures taken with my phone itel A70}