CURBING HEALTH CHALLENGES WITH NATURAL IMMUNE BOOSTERS AND SAFE FOODS

Analyzing the demographic data of users of natural medicinal plants and toxin free foods to fight against various health challenges will help recover fast from global health emergencies

Florence Edeki Ogizeh  is the team lead and managing Director of Gracefm Seda Services Limited , she is certified by International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) AgResult Aflasafe

Going by the demographics in Nigeria, we observed that there are  over 50 million individuals who suffer from either stunted growth, infertility, Cancer and other forms of diseases due to the intake of unsafe foods. If every individual is fully aware of the benefits of the intake of natural immune boosters, medicinal plants, toxin free and safe foods, then it becomes much easier to curb various health challenges- science has proven that the intake of safe foods help protect and help fights some ailments. For example in Nigeria my country it has been proven that the cases of patients who survive the Covid-19 are those with stronger Immune system meaning it is not the intake of drugs that fight the virus but the patient's immune system. From my own personal research i have discovered that people who take natural immune boosters, medicinal and toxin free foods tend to be healthier and are not vulnerable to certain health challenges but it is so unfortunate that most people do not even know that the major health challenges could result from wrong meals while the greatest health challenges can be treated with  natural immune boosters, medicinal  and toxin free foods

We are working to help small holders female farmers in rural communities and low income earners and households in rural and Urban Communities

The small holders female farmers in rural communities are the ones who cater for their immediate and extended families, from the income they earn from farming, they support their husbands, send their children to school, take care of the families' up keep and also lend helping hand to extented family members

Our solution serve the small holders female farmers and low income earners in rural and urban areas, we support them  through awareness/ sensitization programs, training as well empowerment projects.

Small holders female farmers are trained and empowered on the implementation of aflatoxin reduced and medicinal foods, small holders low income earners are empowered on processing of aflatoxin reduced/ aflasafe and medicinal foods; while house hold users are encouraged on the intake of toxin free and medicinal foods

The empowerment/ engagement of small holder farmers and low income earners is a public benefits that can not be overlooked

In addition, Our solution indeed provides benefits to the well-being of those that consume our products. The benefits or public good can be felt through the health benefits our products bring to our customers. 

Furthermore, our solution brings employment to and for some members of the community where we are situated. Besides the benefit of employment, we engage partners in the logistics sector that assist us with at-cost delivery of our products to those that place orders. 

Our products are always available to our customers whenever and wherever they need them. We have partnership with some health centers and hospitals where breast feeding mothers, children and families in general access our various products at affordable prices and with ease.

Our solution is already creating tangible impact in the lives of small holder farmers as they now have better farm yields, good sales/ pricing as well as more customers who are willing to pay more considering the benefits of aflatoxin reduced maize.

Low income earners and households now have alternative means of livelihood and income in the area of processing, packaging and sales. Not only that they also have alternative health solutions from the consumption of toxin free foods

Unemployed youth now find employment in agriculture and processing

Above all the issues of cancer, stunted growth, infertility and low yield of maize/groundnut and poultry farms can be addressed should people adhere to the consumption and usage of aflatoxin reduced foods .

Even my late father who died of cancer, testified that if he was aware of aflatoxin in foods he would not have died but it was so unfortunate that he had already been diagnosed of cancer before he became aware. More also I discovered his health improved while i was administering my research solutions, however there was no way he could survive it because it was already at the last stage

We will scale our impact over the next one year and the next three years through social media and mobile apps applications. We are presently working on mobile apps that can help us reach out to millions of smallholder farmers.

We also intend exporting our products to other countries with the aim of also extending our farms while empowering small holder farmer in those countries on this technology.

We are therefore looking at reaching out to at least above one hundred million small holders household in Nigeria in the next one year, this we will do through our safe food, health and well being awareness campaign, sensitization /training programs, farmers and processors empowerment projects, consultancy on aflatoxin reduced foods and partnership for sustainability projects

Our partnership for sustainability project will involve partnering with various stake holders in the execution of this biotechnology for the benefit of humanity 

Our scaling up in research and sustainability is one of the indicators we are using to measure our progress, as our solution was first initiated in 2015/2016 during My National Youth Service Corps in Lagos State Nigeria, Where  I served as an Advocate For Sustainable Development Goals. Our our company GRACEFM SEDA SERVICES LIMITED in 2016 with the corporate affairs commission  in 2016 and Solution was launched as research products taking it further for progress and sustainability we secured the trade name (GREEN OAK) at the Federal Ministry of industry, trade and investment.

In order to promote safe foods through our solution, we expressed our interest to participate as implementer at the Nigerian AgResult Aflasafe Pilot project organised by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture Ibadan, Oyo State Nigeria.

In order to scale up in Nigerian AgResult Aflasafe Project, we further developed research cereals from the aflatoxin reduced maize proceeds gotten from our farms and that of our partners who also engaged in the aflasafe projects

Above all the reports and testimonies of costumers who consume and market our solution is another major indicator we use to monitor, evaluate and measure our impact and progress

A major barrier that currently exist for us to accomplish our goals in the next year and next three years is finance, small holders are willing to comply, major distributors and consumers always ask for more, but the funds seem to be very low. As for finance, we have been working with the little available funds we have, hoping to grow and expand 

Lack if infrastructure as well as epileptic power supply are challenges here, however we are passionate about what we do hence we are committed to our goals. For Road and power we ensure that our farm and processing factory is not far from each other, while we have developed a device which convert organic waste to bio fuel/gas in order to manage the electricity issues

Cost of raw materials often discourage a lot of small holder farmers and low income earners to observe due diligence in their businesses, however most of our, farmers have now learnt to use alternate raw materials (organic fertilizers, animal feeds and bio gas/ fuel) from their farm waste 

While another of these barrier is government policy. In the area of government policy we work around favorable policies, 

International Institute of Tropical Agriculture IITA Ibadan Oyo State Nigeria

Agricultural Development Program Benin- ADP/IFAD/RUFIN

State Ministry Of Agriculture, Edo State

All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) Edo state Chapter

Like we mentioned earlier that funding is one of the major barriers we face as we work towards achieving our set goals, be they short or long term. We need funding for almost every aspect of our operations, especially for farmland acquisition(to produce the raw materials), equipment and machinery to process the farm produce into consumer goods. We have started operating with what available funds we could access, but indeed more is needed to scale up the solution and consequently impact communities, farmers, women, children etc.

 Also,the multiplier effect getting help(funding) from The Trinity Challenge on employment, the communities around us would be impactful and positive too.      

In addition to our developed  device which convert organic waste to bio fuel/gas in order to manage the electricity issueour , we are looking at engaging solar energy as another source of power because it is environment friendly and cheaper  and all these which includes raw materials would need more funds.

We would like to partner with The Trinity Challenge Member organizations in key areas like funding, data collation and awareness. This is because we believe with such a partnership it would help us meet our short and long terms goals thereby impacting more socially.

One of our major challenges is that of funding. This is intrinsically linked to every aspect of our solution. It is common knowledge on how importance funding is to any project, business or organization in today's business sphere. Therefore, having or finding a partner that understands and shares your vision could be a game-changer if this partner could assist with enough funding to scale up your business and impact lives.

 Also, partnership with The Trinity Challenge member organizations could potentially help us do more robust market research, collect more and better data that would assist us with effective sensitization to our solution.