In a bid to encourage youth participation in agriculture, FCT FADAMA III recently empowered over 109 youth with startup capital as part of efforts to drive agric entrepreneurship, JOHN OBA reports.
Successive administration in Nigerian over the years has attempted to stimulate youth interest in agriculture, as part of efforts to reduce youth unemployment, create jobs and improve the GDP. It is not new that the population of Nigerian farmers are aged as majority of youth would rather look for the easy way out with many used as thugs during elections.
Following in the part of the federal government agenda, the FADAMA III Additional Financial (AF) in 2016 designed the Graduate Unemployed Youth and Women Agroprenuer Support (FADAMA GUYS) scheme to attract unemployed graduates to adopt agricultural production as business along the enterprises of their choice.
The youth were trained on several agricultural enterprises after which they were required to submit their business proposal which was vetted and the best among them were selected for onward empowerment. The project with the support of World Bank provides funding support in form of grants to the successful participants to enable them actualise their dreams of becoming agroprenuers after the trainings.
Finally, after two years, the FCT FADAMA III official flag off the disbursement of grants to the 109 successful candidates last Thursday. The youths got from N300,000 to N500,000.
Addressing the beneficiaries, the Acting Project Coordinator, Mr Rotimi Ajayi, said the scheme is designed to support government efforts in addressing the issues of youth unemployment as well as the attainment of food and nutritional security and which is in tandem with the Presidential Youth Empowerment Scheme as well as the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP) which are strategic components of the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP).
Ajayi said as one of the pilot states implementing the programme, 109 unemployed graduates (women and youth) are participating in the programme and they have all received grants from the project to enable them commence implementation of their chosen sub projects along five broad enterprises which are crops, poultry, fisheries, livestock and business.
He said the FADAMA project in the FCT to date has trained over 3,510 farmers under the Capacity Building Component, whole 14 production groups benefited from project Grants and cumulatively cultivated a total land area of 1532 hectares, one processing group successfully constructed a modern and fully equipped cassava processing facility. The project was commissioned in January.
Also speaking, the Acting Secretary, Agriculture and Rural Development Secretariat, Mr Olufemi Folarin, said the grant was another significant milestone in the efforts of the FCT FADAMA III Additional Financing and the FCT toward the development of agriculture in FCT.
Folarin said FCT is endowed with vast fertile land and good ecology that supports sustainable agricultural production, thus giving us comparative advantage in the production of several agricultural produce like sorghum, rice, cassava, benni seed, memo. Similarly, the large cosmopolitan population of the Territory provides one of the largest agricultural produce markets in Nigeria, thereby providing an enabling environment for the development of small and medium scale agricultural enterprises.
He said the FCT Secretariat will continue to make concerted efforts towards improving the lot of the rural farmers through several interventions such as the sale of agricultural inputs to farmers at subsidised rates, provision of Nigeria extension services to drive technology adoption and other programmes targeted towards increasing agricultural productivity and ensuring food and nutrition security in FCT.
He charged the beneficiaries to commence implementation of the project saying the FCT will give necessary support toward facilitating the successful implement and suitability of the various sub projects.
“In ensuring that, the ARDS will continue to work closely with the FCT FADAMA project to provide necessary support and mentorship to ensure you excel in your chosen field to become successful agropreneuers.”
He said the Secretariat would support participants that are into production of various crops with 200 bags of fertilizers and others complementary agrochemicals.
He, however, warned that his office will care out intensive monitor of the implementation process of the scheme in order to ensure adherence with laid down guidelines.
Some of the beneficiaries commended the scheme and promised to commence farming immediately, saying that though the funds came late than earlier promised, they “would still use it to start up something.”
One of the beneficiaries, Mr. Oluwole Oluwatola, said he would start with hundred birds.
“Initially it was N1.5 million but was later slash down to N700,000 but now to N379,000. We asked why the money was reduced but they said what they have will not be sufficient for the whole participants at that rate. But that notwithstanding, I will still start up something with this. At least I will stock hundred birds for a start.
“Though I expected that haven’t kept us waiting for so long, something substantial should have been done, because we were told not to do any other work, and we waited for two years but as it stands now this can’t go more than hundred birds, but that will still go along way or a starter as a seed money.
Ms Amaram Ogechi from Gwagwalada who intends to go into fish farming, said each fish farmers got N408,000 but that she had issues with her account, though it has been rectified, yet she didn’t get the full amount because she got thesame amount with the poultry farmers.
“It was a mistake, they gave me what was given to the poultry farmers, but I sure it will be rectified. But with this, I will start my fish farming immediately, as an entrepreneur we will do our best, we always have a way of making things work. What is important right now is that we have received the money,” she said.
