Joel Ajayi

The Nigeria Young Farmers Network (NYFN) is seeking for more participation of  Nigerian youths in embracing agriculture in order to reduce insecurity, unemployment, and another social menace.

The National Coordinator of NYFN, Promise Amahah who made this call during a peace full rally in Abuja, explained that the goal of the president is to lift over millions of Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years and that can only be achieved when young people get involved in agriculture.

According to him, youth across the country lack knowledge about the opportunities in agriculture, lack knowledge of business opportunities in agriculture.

He added that they don’t understand that agriculture is a source of wealth creation.

‘’We are represented from a different state, we have members across that 36 states of Nigeria, we are in every local government and every ward actively and our major tool is information and data, without data we won’t be able to do much in agricultural development, so we are gathering data of young people across the country to know their interest and to connect them to the opportunities in the agricultural value chain and that is what we are set to do.

‘’We are also partnering with the federal ministry of agriculture to be able to achieve this and also to leverage on government programs already on agriculture, so we are everywhere in the country, we are over 2 million and going and we expect that by the end of the year we must have reached 10 million.

‘’The goal of the president is to lift over millions of Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years and we can only achieve that when our young people get involved in agriculture. Agriculture is the highest employer of labour and agriculture is the quickest tool out of poverty, with agriculture, most problems will be solved and that’s why we are here.

‘’What we found that is the major challenge is lack of knowledge, young people nationwide lack knowledge about the opportunities in agriculture, lack knowledge of business opportunities in agriculture, they don’t understand that a lot of wealth can be created through agriculture and most of us who are already engaged in agriculture are doing very well and living comfortably., ‘’ he said.

The Director of Federal Department of Agricultural Extension (FDAE) Engr. Frank Satimari while speaking with pressmen said that the government is interested in mobilizing and sensitizing youths for agriculture.

Satimari who was represented by the Deputy Director of FMARD, Muhammad Bashiru explained that FDAE was to train and deploy75,000 youths aimed towards creating new skills and generate job for the teeming population of unemployed youths in Nigeria, to increase the productivity of farmers through continual access to information, innovation, and technology for improved practices in the agricultural value chain.

His Words:“We are concerned with mobilizing the youth for agriculture. That is why the Ministry currently mandated the Federal Department of Agricultural Extension (FDAE) to train and deploy 75,000 young farmers ratio. The objective is to create new skills and generate jobs for the teeming population of unemployed youth in Nigeria, to increase the productivity of farmers through continual access to information, innovation, and technology for improved practices in the agricultural value chain.

‘’In this regard, the youth population in Nigeria is encouraged to embrace agriculture as a profitable venture by engaging in various forms of agricultural activities within the respective sub-sectors and value chains.

‘’Agriculture has always been an innovative sector. But we need to improve faster through Information and Communication Technology (ICT) if we are to achieve our goals.

‘’It is a known fact across the globe that for a country to attain growth and development, its economy has to be diversified. Mono-economy needs to give way to the productive development of various sectors of the economy.

‘’The fundamental challenges we face today is not how to produce more but how to produce better. I want to stress that innovation in agriculture is the key priority to tackle food insecurity and unemployment in Nigeria.

Share on Facebook

Tweet

Follow us

Share

Share

Share

Share

Share