NAN-AE-8
Agriculture
By Kevin Okunzuwa
Benin, July 4, 2017 (NAN) An NGO, the Youth Initiative for Sustainable Agriculture (YISA)-Nigeria, and the Association of Deans of Agriculture in Nigerian Universities (ADAN) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to help promote the interest of youths in agriculture as a business.
Mr Ogirinye Innocent, the founder and National Coordinator of YISA-Nigeria, said on Tuesday in Benin that the MoU revolved around an Agripreneurship Incubation and Mentorship (AIM) programme aimed at promoting the interest of youths in agriculture.
The signing of the MoU took place during the ongoing 61st Annual General Meeting of ADAN at the University of Benin which had as theme: “Breaking Nigeria’s Monolithic Economy through Agriculture.’’
According to Innocent, AIM is the group’s flagship empowerment programme with ADAN aimed at helping to change the mind set of youths who see agriculture within the purview of peasant farming.
“It is designed for the students of Faculties and Colleges of Agriculture in Nigeria’s tertiary institutions to build the capacity of the students in practical agribusiness skills.
“It is also to create agribusiness hubs within the school environment in order to produce successive generations of active players for sustainable agriculture in Nigeria upon graduation,’’ he said.
Innocent described the agriculture sub-sector of the economy as the “untapped goldmine’’ that can revive the country’s ailing economy.
He, however, said that the lack of interest among the youths and “more unacceptably among students and graduates of agricultural disciplines is connected with the little attention given to practical demonstration of the profitability of agriculture as a business.’’
“There is little or no practical skills on the part of most students and graduates of agriculture.
“They also lack support in form of incentives, especially financing platform for graduates of agriculture to sustainably establish Agribusiness enterprises upon graduation.
“Today in Africa, young people are not interested in agriculture and are therefore not active players in the sector.
“It is a sad development that youths, especially young graduates, have left the `goldmine’ in the hands of ageing peasant farmers whose best tools are hand hoes and cutlasses, while youth unemployment and general food insecurity continue to rise in the midst of abundant resources,’’ he said.
He said while lack of incentives for emerging young entrepreneurs could be blamed for the seeming lack of interest by youths in agriculture, it will be “ a professional backlash and academic failure’’ for graduates of agriculture to continue to roam the streets in search of white collar jobs.
Innocent said the only way to tackle the challenge was to encourage young people already involved in agriculture to champion the re-orientation process for the present crop of agriculture students to see, treat and embrace agriculture as a profitable business model.
“This will create the needed peer mechanism for the achievement of the goal of creating a successive generation of active players for sustainable agriculture right from the school environment,’’ he said.
Innocent said the organisation’s rural farm school with functional centres were located in Benue state (Aquaculture and Plants Nursery beds), Kano (Wheat), Zamfara (Wheat) and Abia (Apiculture) and had built capacity of youths and women in agriculture.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that ADAN, an umbrella body of Deans of Faculties and Colleges of Agriculture in Nigerian universities, was founded in 1956.
Prof. Musibau Bamikole, the host dean, said the objective, of setting up the association, was to consciously pursue a collective promotional and development agenda for Agricultural Education in Nigeria.
Bamikole said the association, with current membership strength of 50 Colleges and Faculties of Agriculture in Nigerian universities, had promoted the development of rapid and uniform agricultural curricula management. (NAN)
KOO/DOR/OJO
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(Edited by Nyisom Dore/Mufutau Ojo)