~ Alpha Sennon

Trinidad and Tobago

My Project: WHYFARM

WHYFARM aims at promoting agriculture among children in order to grow the future feeders of 2050. This is done using agri-edutainment (agricultural education and entertainment) to teach about food and nutrition security. To assist in this process WHYFARM invented the first superhero for food and nutrition security in the world, AGRIman.

My Inspiration

I grew up on a crop and livestock farm but I greatly disliked it. The farm activities were boring and I was always questioning why my friends are playing video games and watching cartoons after school, I am busy feeding fowls and watering crops. As I went onto university switching around with degrees, I ended up doing Agribusiness major after several attempts of trying other degrees. Upon starting Agribusiness, everything which I know as a child from being on the farm now made perfect sense to me, and the theoretical work in the classroom was easily understood due to my practical experience. I started to travel to other countries via the agribusiness society of the University of the West Indies and this is where my passion started to grow and I realized that this was my calling all along but I ran from it.

This is when I realized that I must invent something cool for agriculture so that other youths do not have to go through the same or similar experience I went through. I founded WHYFARM which means We Help YOU-th Farm. I thought about the story of captain plantain and watching that cartoon series as a child, it made me more environmentally aware so no littering, concerned about pollution, not wasting water, etc. I realized that something like this is missing for Agriculture. I said:

“There must be an adventure
To encourage youth in agriculture
Starting with the main character who branded as the world’s most powerful food provider”

I introduced the world’s first and only superhero for food and nutrition security, AGRImannnnnnn!!!
So kids can now look up to a cool superhero figure that’s transforming agriculture to agriCOOLture.

My Biggest Challenge

Finding funding to develop the auxiliary services needed to support AGRIman Adventures.

My Best Resources

Attending networking events, conferences, summits. Social media platforms help with promotion and helps connect you to other persons and networks as well. Entrepreneurial books or documentaries where other entrepreneurs share their experience about their journey also helps. Always taking training courses, attending workshops or webinars is absolutely vital.

My Advice to Peers

Find the I in your Idea and the U in your Uniqueness. Explore one’s creative self firstly.
Do not only think outside “the box” but destroy “the box”
Definitely get a mentor who understands you and one who understands your project.
Look for partnership, not sponsorship, it’s all about collaboration not competition
Do not reinvent the wheel… make it spin, it’s all about Complementing not reinventing.
Understand the process involved in achieving your goals, do not try to jump from A To D, make sure the steps of A to B, B to C and C to D are intact. Understand that smaller steps are needed to build those bigger steps.

You can contact Alpha at: whyfarmit@gmail.com