 They don't get shocked knowing that this is coming from their own country. Actually they do every time and that is the thing that I want to impart in them that we can actually grow our own, we can feed ourselves. Why are they shocked? Because we're so used to depending on other countries to doing things for us you know so we don't believe in our own and that is the narrative, the colonization narrative that we have adopted as a people and we want to change that. We are great people, Africa, our motherland is a beautiful place to be you know the funny thing is that whenever you're in Africa the feeling of acceptance and being with your own people, I don't have to worry about racial profiling or being harassed on the streets like I did in America. You know your racial profiling happens in the West you know that so just being with your own people and doing the things that you love and seeing it making an impact is amazing. Good morning from South Sudan, the world youngest country. It's your favorite village boy Mr. Ghana baby right here in the farm. You know what I told you guys that I was born in a village, I'm also a farmer so farming videos are my all-time favorite videos that I enjoy doing. I've been telling each and every one out there that it's time for each and every young African out there to own a farm because 60% of the world's arable land is here in Africa so why are you guys wearing suits sitting in banks as if you've made it and leaving all these things for others. I mean in Africa they even train us to say that only poor people can own a farm so if you ask so many Africans they want to be a farmer they will tell you hell no because I don't want to be poor. Agriculture is the future. I mean can you believe that this farm right here belongs to a young woman who lived in America and she decided to live America and then come here to be a farmer. I know some of you might think that something is really wrong with her but hey we need to talk to her and find out if something is really wrong with her you know what do me a favor because this video is mind-blowing so all you need to do to help me is to like this video don't forget to share share to friends and family please and help us reach 800,000 subscribers come with me let's go talk to her hi hi what am I it's good to see you good to see you too oh my goodness because of you I have to fly all the way from Accra to Juba that is crazy you are an inspiration you are too has anyone ever told you that people have told me that before but do you know that you are inspiration to so many people out there I believe I am because you're here oh my goodness tell me who are you and what's your name sure my name is Joy Ladoo and I am an Agripreneur here in Juba South Sudan your name is Joy yes now I think you can can can hold your hands can you measure the joy in my heart this is the joy that I feel whenever I see young Africans like you winning I'm so proud of you thank you and I think you need to help me inspire so many young Africans out there tell me how does this journey all started were you born and raised in here no I was not born and raised here I was born in South Sudan but then my family moved to Kenya when I was barely two weeks old because of the civil war your family moved because of civil yes my family moved to Kenya because of the civil war and I pretty much grew up in Kenya okay yes from Kenya what happened so I studied in Kenya uh did my secondary school education and then I was lucky enough to get a scholarship to go and do my post high school in Norway for two years and then after that I was also lucky again to get another scholarship to go to America so I went to America to do my university my undergrad in postcraft how long did you stay in America I stayed in America for eight years come on I mean postgraduate yes it's just two years yes you ended up staying for eight years yes what happened um tried to really figure out myself after education you know sometimes you you just want to to find yourself out because at that point I actually realized that what I had studied because by career training I did public health specifically infectious disease epidemiology um so after after finishing my postgrad um I was conflicted I feel like I had a passion deep within me that I had restricted for the longest time whoa yes and that passion is that passion is agriculture and you decided to leave America and then come to South Sudan to start farming yes I don't know if I can check if something is wrong with you I mean can I check they say great things are actually done by people who are you would call them crazy you know you don't have to be similar you don't have to do or follow a path that everybody follows sometimes you just have to be different and in difference you can actually make an impact so I mean if you want to be a farmer definitely you grew up in Kenya yes so why not Kenya but decided to come to South Sudan because this is my ancestral land there is something so strong about home you know I believe that wherever you go in the world your home is always going to call you back it doesn't matter so South Sudan is the land of my ancestors I decided to come back and be with my people because when I'm here I feel so much joy you know yes here you feel so much joy just like that's impressive you know I really want to know is farming capital intensive actually no not at all starting a garden here in South Sudan is not capital intensive at all you just need a little bit of money to get started with your equipment and of course money to to hire employees to get your seeds and also put down the system for irrigation do you own this land I do not own this land right now I am leasing the land but hopefully in the near future I want to to own this land how many years just one 12 more months and I'll be able to to own this land hopefully but I mean meeting the people to lease the land to you was it difficult it was not very difficult because the leasing process but the owning part is very difficult it wasn't difficult to lease it because they were really excited about the whole idea of gardening you know and gardening also of farming in a completely different context from how they're used to you know so it wasn't very difficult the locals here plus the the leaders were very open and they really embraced the the the entire idea I really wanted to know which year did you move to South Sudan I actually officially moved to South Sudan in 2019 okay but before then I would just come and visit and go back you come and visit and yes I would come and visit yeah so I want to understand yeah when you move back why you decided to start a farm I mean why agriculture in the first place there's so many things I mean let me understand did you learn agriculture in school I did not study agriculture by career training I'm actually I studied public health I studied infectious disease epidemiology so why Greek my story is actually a little bit long in 2017 I attended a conference on emerging trends in agriculture in Africa and during one of the lectures the the person who was hosting actually had a very interesting topic there were three countries that were being featured case studied and South Sudan was one of them and the way they had featured South Sudan they labeled it a sleeping giant in agriculture and during that case study the guy actually gave us a small activity in the lecture room he said okay everyone should go to their phones and try to type up you know agriculture or farming in Africa or in South Sudan and see what you get I was really astounded because all the imagery and the portrayals that I saw on on the internet were really pretty much of starving children you know military and it really broke my heart for a second so what I did was immediately after that conference I decided to fly straight to Juba South Sudan that was in 2017 I came to come and actually see the situation and do my market research and see what exactly is going on when I arrived in Juba shockingly I did not see any starving children on the streets as the media was showing I did not see of course there are military but it was not to that extent as it was being portrayed and then another thing that I saw in the market for sure was the fact that there was heavy dependence on importation we were pretty much importing more than 80% of all the fresh produce in in this in the country from outside yeah sometimes some of the produce are being imported all the way from India and Brazil and it really got me to thinking you know why are we importing well we have vast arable land and we have resources we have our majestic Nile just by our fingertips why don't we use that so that was an opportune moment for me to really try to bridge the gap of food insecurity in my home country you know you're trying to say that the inspiration came from the fact that your country is importing foodstuffs yes my country is importing at least 80% of food from other countries from neighboring countries and all the way from Brazil and India and yet we are capable we have the we have the skills and the resources you know to to to feed ourselves what are you growing in here right now we have a variety of vegetables we do have kale we have coriander we have zucchini we have eggplants we have green peppers and what else do we have we have okra it's really a favorite among our locals you didn't mention we have mangoes you know in this country since i came two things that i found in this country is mango and cuttlefish there you go see i mean that i look far everywhere mangoes everywhere along the Nile you see mangoes everywhere but hey let me tell you something i feel like africa is just the same everywhere yes this is where we do our cooking yeah we all do this i mean you go to the farm yes what are you cooking we're cooking beans today ah no yes beans doesn't look so local we're cooking oh i'm sorry you fix it you see that's how it is you have cassava here we do have some few cassava but it's not yet that season oh my goodness so like if it's not that season then how do you irrigate your crops we actually like i told you we are so blessed by mother nature that we do have the Nile right adjacent to us so we pump water right straight from the Nile and we irrigate our which means the Nile is saving you during dry seasons yes because we are currently in dry season in here right yes that's correct use the Nile yes can i check it out absolutely thank you so Maya this is where we pump our water right from the Nile as you can see you know we got a generator and our piping system that pushes the water right straight to the garden amazing yeah which means you don't even have to pay for water we don't have to pay for the water see this is what makes africa blessed you know but it's not being portrayed out there all the narrative that is out there is about war-torn africa africa devastated by diseases and poverty and hunger and all those kind of stuff and that's why i want people like you to help me change the narrative you don't think i need to help you get a youtube channel i would love that what will you call your channel that is still in the making you know what there's going to be a description there's going to be a channel link in the description we don't have on any idea of the name that we're going to call the channel but i know that she's going to have a channel right here so hey do me a favor go to your description box go click on it go to your youtube channel go and subscribe and tell her that what amaya told you to subscribe thank you so much you know what yeah i'm walking barefooted because i want to connect with nature in here you know it feels so good to be back again in the farm but i just want to ask you how does it feel to be a farmer that is a very interesting question maya you know there's something really therapeutic as you would say about being a farmer and just being out in the nature connecting with mother earth you know it is very therapeutic and then also as a farmer really to see the hard work of your hands you know being able to feed other people when you plant your seed until all the way and natcha it all the way to selling it it gives you a sense of fulfillment you know and then also you're really contributing directly towards problems in the in the in the country problems in the economy in Africa we tend to say that farmers are supposed to be poor but i don't think you're poor i think uh the idea of poverty is a mindset it is a mindset you don't poverty is is something that you actually you're taught you know you're taught you can do anything to improve your life and you don't have to do the normal things that uh or the status quo that people teach you that you have to go to school and become a doctor become an engineer to become rich wealth you can create it from anything from the passion that you that you have you know you just need you just need a plan a passion and you can become you can have all that you can i hug you can i hug you please i feel like you spoke from the soul and thank you really touched me i mean growing up in africa we're told to go to school yes get married get a job and that's it build your house have your cars if made it in life right we have so many young africans out there who think like that for based on your experience do you think there's something wrong with our education system i would actually say there is something uh concretely wrong with our education system but that's why i want to give my message to every young african out there dare to be different dare not to follow the path or the ways that everybody is follow you can be different and carve your way out and still make a living and be happy and make an impact you know you can do that you can do that how many people have you employed in here i do employ uh 12 people but we also do have uh volunteers who come through the training process training process yes we do training people yes i do train the local community and then i do have staff from other organizations that come we train them here for a period of a month you know impart them with skills so that they can go out there establish their own guidance if they can you know the more people get into this the better for the country the better for the economy so that we don't need to depend on our country or our government supporters you know and empower the youth they are the future of any country so that's what i do i focus mostly on youth and women and i train them so that they can also go and start their own and feed their families when a youth is empowered a youth of our nation is empowered or the women of the community is empowered then we'll be able to actually break the tendency of dependency on aid and other organizations from coming and help and and really feeding us you know is really building resilience and then also self-sufficiency for the long time because for instance with COVID-19 think about it if the borders are closed and we're really relying and depending on other countries to provide us with food who's going to feed us really our our well-being is dependent on the mercy of other countries so that's why i do that to empower my own people self-sufficient now and resilience major challenge that you face when you started establishing this in here just like any other business the beginning few years to months uh months to years are usually very difficult um for me really is uh because this project here in South Sudan is actually a brainchild of another project that i have in in in in Uganda so you know when as an entrepreneur you have tried something and have proven that it's actually viable then getting to to to have it pick speed is usually difficult or to convince other stakeholders that this thing is actually viable and we can actually um we can expand it that has all that has been the biggest challenge for me talking about expansion where do we see uh Ubuntu farms by the way i even forgot to ask you what is the name of your farm but yes it is called Ubuntu farm and why Ubuntu Ubuntu because we cherish the idea of togetherness as a people one person cannot build a nation so as a community as an entire community we can build our nation that's why i call it Ubuntu what do we see Ubuntu farms in the next five years in the next five years we see Ubuntu farm uh along the entire uh value chain process right now we are producing but we also want to enter into into processing uh for instance we'd like to have a greenhouse here if we get a greenhouse we're definitely going to increase our production at least fivefold and then also maybe mechanization having tractors and also a proper means of transportation because our roads can get really tricky during rainy seasons so if we can get proper transportation we can really go far uh i hope in the next five ten years we're going to have more than 200 acres for sure and having Ubuntu farm and gardens all over south Sudan that's a big dream yes and everything boils down to you you're the main person behind it you don't need investors i would love to have investors and that's why i am here actually would love to have stakeholders you know we're very open to having other people join us in this project so if you are in your room watching me right now i mean do me a favor send her a message and if you would love to invest in a farm talk to her personally not me how many hectares or acres do you have in here right now we have seven acres but we're really working to expanding it very soon that is our goal we really want to increase our production and expand our our acres is this the only farm that you got or you got a another farm that i know nothing about uh we do have another uh another farm in Uganda that is where my entire agriculture journey started yes how many acres those are 12 acres so 12 plus seven is like 19 acres i don't i mean forgive my honest can you tell me how you are yes i am 28 years whoa are you kidding me i am 28 years yo we have so many young Africans out there what is your final message to Africans out there my final message to continental Africans Africans in the country again like i said dare and challenge to be different you don't have to follow the path that everybody follows you know you can be different carve your way out of life and still make a great impact in the country and in the in the continent for my african brothers and sisters in the diaspora i am actually telling you that you're welcome to come back home come back home to africa and experience it yourself you know you should not focus so much on the on the portrayal of the media of the africa that they are showing you the africa we are in today is growing it is developing come and see it for yourself there's so many opportunities that you can get and that you can make a living out of so please do come we are here we are living evidence that it can be done right here in africa that you also if you want to come we are here to give you the tools and the guidance so that you can also start your journey so you're welcome come back and taste africa for yourself i'm really lack of words i'm really lack of words god damn it's a worth it to be a farmer it is absolutely worth it i could not take it any other way because the impact is amazing you know you are among the people that are like you and they appreciate the work that you that you're doing and you also really know that you're contributing directly to some of the biggest problems in this in this continent food insecurity who are the consumers of your vegetables we do supply hotels big hotels we do supply the market some of the markets here we also do deliver door to door delivery to households they don't get shocked knowing that this is coming from their own country actually they do every time and that is the thing that i want to impart in them that we can actually grow our own we can feed ourselves why are they shocked because we are so used to depending on other countries to doing things for us you know so we don't believe in our own and that is the narrative the colonization narrative that we have adapted as a people and we want to change that if you have the chance to say what will it be it will be the mindset of the people the mindset of our leaders and the young people you know we just need to believe in ourselves that we have everything that he takes you know that we are amazing people we are great people africa our motherland is a beautiful place to be you know the funny thing is that whenever you're in africa the feeling of of of acceptance and being with your own people i don't have to worry about racial profiling or being harassed on the streets like i did in america you know your racial profiling happens in the west you know that so just being with your own people and doing the things that you love and seeing it making an impact is amazing i have to credit this channel whether you like it or not you know we don't have a name yet but the link will be in the description do me a favor go there subscribe and be part of her family you know what what are you going to do on the channel for us i am going to be showing you amazing things on agricultural trends in in in our garden and in south sudan as a whole as we expand and actually really improve agriculture and food security in south sudan there are so many young south sudanis will never grow up here yes they grow up all over the place yes but now they don't want to come back yes if you want to tell them to come back what would that message be the message would be the country is open for you to come really do come again the imagery that is shown to you out there is not the truth come and experience it yourself we're here we're willing to help you we're willing to guide you you know we're willing to connect with you and show you the way we also started here trust me this is my best video in south sudan like i'm so emotional right i don't even know what to tell you it's a favorite village boy mr garner baby right here in the farm come back and connect to nature and you know what don't forget to like subscribe and be part of this awesome family i'll see you in the next one i am my peace out