FG Invests $300m To Fund Youths In Agriculture – Minister

The Federal government,through the Minister of State for Agriculture, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri has disclosed that it is ready to invest 300 million USD to fund youths in agriculture.

Lokpobiri also assured that 20% of an innitial grant by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in collaboration with the Islamic Bank is to be channelled to support the development of women and youth in Agriculture at a total cost of N100m annually for a five year period.

The senator who said the programme will be duplicated across all the nations 109 Senatorial Zones with the ultimate aim of empowering the Nigerian Youth and bringing down the nations food import billl lamented that Nigeria had become a dumping ground for all manner of poisonous foods including poultry pumped and preserved with formaldehyde.

“We cannot continue to import food at this time. With Nigeria being the highest producer of Cassava and the high demand for ethanol,the federal government is in the process of acquiring 18-20 cassava processing plants from China” he said

He bemoaned that “6m naira worth of rice was daily imported and over 20 million eggs respectively as Nigeria suffered a 100mtonnes deficit in egg production”

He also revealed that the federal government was set to unfold the sectors Roadmap in a few weeks for the development of agriculture.

Meanwhile the ENABLE programme is a mechanism for empowering graduate youths and directing them to careers in agri businesses base on the agripreneurs(Agricultural entrepreneurs).

It is a five year programme organised on 4 platforms which include creating an enabling environment for youth employment,supporting agribusiness incubation,financing agribusinesses as well as coordinating,monitoring and evaluation.

The program aims to create jobs,food security and rural income generation.Its supported with 12.5busd and targets 1. 25 agribusinesses jobs in 25 countries including Nigeria.