The National Directorate of Employment (NDE) has flagged off the training of no fewer than 100 youth in Akwa Ibom state on sustainable agricultural development.
The scheme tagged the Sustainable Agricultural Development Training Scheme (SADTS) is meant to impart modern techniques in agriculture on youth to boost food sufficiency in the country.
The director general of NDE, Mallam Abubakar Fikpo, who stated this Tuesday in Uyo, noted that the training was under the supervision of the Rural Employment Promotion (REP) department of the agency.
The DG, who was represented by the state coordinator of NDE, Mr Obegolu Donatus, added that the agency has continued to tackle unemployment in the nation by engaging youth in saleable skills and fostering value reorientation and attitudinal change to non-existing white-collar jobs.
Fikpo noted that the training was equally fashioned out to sharpen youth’s skills across agricultural value chains to enhance food security, create employment, and generate income for the nation.
“Sustainable Agricultural Development Training Scheme (SADTS) is designed to impart modern and innovative agricultural skills along its value chains to unemployed persons to become self-employed.
“Sustainable agriculture refers to an agricultural production and distribution system that provides more profitable farm income and enhances the quality of life for the farming communities.
“The scheme will create employment for the rural communities through training on modern innovative agricultural technology (vegetables crops/livestock production skills) along its value chains and improve the livelihoods of the rural people,” he stated.
The DG expressed optimism that the initiative will drastically reduce rural-urban drift to the barest minimum and expose unemployed youth to the profitability of vegetable crops and livestock production farming business.
In his goodwill message, the director of REP department, Abuja, Mr. Edem Duke, lauded the federal government and the DG of NDE alongside other development partners for fashioning out the initiative for the benefit of unemployed youth and the nation at large.
Duke, represented by a staff of the Department, Mrs Blessing Uwah noted that 1,200 across 12 states of the federation will be trained and empowered in the scheme.
