27th February, 2012
About 2,000 unemployed youths stormed the Lagos State Agricultural Development Authority, ADA, Agege, Lagos, southwest Nigeria, last week to sit for the Agricultural Youth Empowerment Scheme, Agric-YES, examination.
The Agric-YES is a programme aimed at empowering the youths of Lagos State in modern agricultural practice. The overall aim of the scheme is to breed a new generation of agro-entrepreneurs in poultry, fish farming, bee-keeping and all season vegetable farming.
The successful applicants will undergo a six-month course at the Agricultural Training Institute, Araga, Epe.
From the 2,000 youths who sat for the examination last week, only 100 successful applicants will be taken to participate in the six months scheme, where the youths will be equipped in mechanised agriculture and given micro-credit facilities to set up their own agric ventures.
Some of the youths who spoke with Alausa Rhythms shortly before writing the examination lauded the programme but lamented that only 100 youths would be taken out of the 2,000. They appealed to the government to extend the number to 500.
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, Dr. Olajide Bashorun, stated that the aim of the government was to empower more youths in agriculture.
Bashorun, who was represented by the Programme Manager, ADA, Mr. Kayode Ashafa, said the scheme had produced over 300 students, whose impact was already being felt in the food provision programme of the present administration.
He said the scheme was designed in three phases, saying that the first phase of six months was a full-time intensive training in the class and practical in demonstration farms.
“The second phase is a six-month intensive training in reputable and viable commercial farms, where the interns are housed and made to work on the commercial farms before launching them into the real world of farming.
“Two hundred trainees have graduated from this stage while members of the Course three set are presently undergoing internship. The third is the final exit phase where successful trainees are permanently settled in farms after which successful interns will be supported by the state government with take-off grants and linkage to the Lagos Micro Finance Institution (LASMI) for credit assistance.
“It is projected that with the graduation of 200 graduate farmers from the institute in a year, the state would have been able to produce 1,000 newbreed farmers in the next five years,” he stated.
According to him, “the project is an economic and social approach to boost the nation’s agricultural output, reduce youth unemployment, eradicate poverty and enhance rural development.”
With 320 hectares of land, the Agric-YES project is engaging and empowering youths in Lagos through agriculture.