As part of measures to checkmate the ever growing rate of unemployment, especially among youths, the Kwara State Government says it will fully engage the youths in agriculture, with the provision of funds and farm inputs as part of the government’s commercial agriculture scheme.
The state Governor, Dr. Abdulfatah Ahmed, disclosed this at a special media chat focused on youth, held on Friday at the Governor’s Lodge, Government House, Ilorin.
The governor said government’s responsibility was to create policies that would drive the economy.
He said in order to achieve the objectives of youth empowerment, the state government embarked on the enumeration of youth that would be positioned into various skills acquisition programmes, including agriculture.
According to Ahmed, government set up the Malete youth farm with the aim of training youths in agriculture, stressing that already, some of the youths have graduated and given funds to set up their own farms across the state.
He said: “Already, they are being compartmentalized into crops and locations and are expected to go to their locations to become change agents in the agricultural sector.
“The success recorded would now enable us to begin to expand it by choosing people from each of the 16 local governments who would largely become ‘change agents’.”
According to Ahmed, any of the youths that successfully completes his own farming skill acquisition would now become a master trainer and cluster himself with another set of five to 10 farmers.
He said: “The most important part of it was that we have set up an agric mall because we have to go into agric business on a commercial bases by looking at the constraint that disallow people from making success in the agric business.”
Ahmed said the Agric Mall would provide access to funding, agricultural inputs, and access to off-takers, adding that farmers can now go to the Agric Mall to meet farm extension workers and banking support team for their services.
He said: “The scheme would now be replicated in all the three senatorial districts of the state.
“For now, we are test running that of Ilorin.
“The success of Ilorin will now lead to the setting up of one or two in Kwara North, one in Shonga axis one in Kaiama axis and of course some in Kwara South.”
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