Date: 2020-11-25

Two corps members selected from Abia and Oyo states have received N4 million Federal Government grants to practice agribusiness and value addition in agriculture.

Speaking at a training programme on value addition of agricultural commodities for 40 corps members selected from 16 local government areas of Kwara State in Ilorin, on Tuesday, Executive Director, Nigerian Stored Products Research Institute (NSPRI), Patricia Pessu, said that the benefiting corps members were selected from the last batch of trainees of the institute.

Pessu, who decried the increasing number of unemployed youth in the country, said that similar opportunity awaits any trainee of the current batch who submits a promising proposal at the end of the service year.

"This project we are doing now has been factored in our 2020 budget. It makes it possible for us to go ahead with it. But there are other projects coming up in our 2021 budget which Nigerians at various levels will benefit from our technologies.

"The two corps members have submitted proposals and the committee we set up had reviewed them and made our own input," she said.

Quoting the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Dr Pessu put the number of unemployed youth at 13.9 million.

NSPRI boss added that "To put things into context, Nigeria's unemployed youth of 13.9 million is more than the population of Rwanda and several other African countries. This youth population is also about 64 per cent of the total unemployed Nigerians, suggesting that the most agile working-class population in the country remains unemployed.

"Agriculture is the viable option to diversify the economy; there are various components of agriculture that are yet to be fully explored especially the post-harvest value chain which young Nigerians can tap into.

"Post-harvest value chain due to its less drudgery offers more attractive activities involving handling, storage, transportation and marketing for youths.

"The main objective of this programme is to encourage self-reliance, self-employment and ensure productivity for youths. I sincerely hope that this training will translate into better post-harvest practices among the youths and create employment opportunities."

Declaring the training programme open, the Kwara State Agriculture and Rural Development Commissioner, Muritala Olanrewaju, echoed the importance of good and efficient post-harvest handling of farm produce.

Alhaji Olanrewaju said that the state government is irrevocably committed to consolidating on the commercialisation of agriculture through the provision of machinery and equipment.

He added that the state is also "refocusing agric sector from being a mass social service to a profitable agribusiness."