The Executive Director of Agricultural and Rural Management Training Institute (ARMTI), Ilorin, Mr. Samuel Afolayan has canvassed more incentives to Nigerian youth towards encouraging them to adopt farming as a profession.

Afolayan, who expressed fears over the ageing population of the present Nigerian farmers, said soft loans should be given to the youth to farm.

He spoke recently in Ilorin at the grand finale of a 10 day special training on the use of sweet potato organised by the ARMTI in collaboration with the Hellen Keller Institute (HKI), and Centro Internacional De la Papa (CIP) both in Kenya.

The event drew participants from Nigeria and Kenya. Besides, Dr. (Mrs) Hilda Mungua and Mr. Frank Ojwang came from Kenya as resource persons just as Mr. A.U. Njoku and Dr. Femi Oladunni both of ARMTI and their counterpart from NRCRI Umudike, Dr. Jude Njoku represented resource persons from Nigeria.

The course was designed at increasing investment in orange-Fleshed Sweet Potato (OFSP) to combat Vitamin ' A' deficiency among children and women of reproductive age.

Afolayan believed that agricultural sector in Nigeria when fully developed could serve as a veritable avenue for reducing unemployment among Nigerian youth, adding that the development would lessen cases of social vices among the targeted population.

He thanked the Federal Ministry of Agriculture for its concerns during the recent rainstorm disaster that wrecked havoc to buildings and facilities at the ARMTI.

The cost of the damage done he noted ran into millions of naira adding that the development was a big blow to whatever success the institute had achieved in the year 2012.

The ARMTI boss, while encouraging more cultivation of sweet potato by the people of Kwara State, said even though the planting of the tuber originated from the people of Offa and Oyun in the state, those of Benue State are at present the leading growers of the tuber in Nigeria.

Njoku of the NRCRI said Nigeria has about 30 per cent deficiency of vitamin 'A' especially among under aged children and women at reproductive age.