Leadership (Abuja)
3 October 2008
Youth Farmer Development Initiative a non- governmental organisation has reiterated the need for government to revolutionise the Agricultural sector thus, making it attractive for massive youth participation.
The organisation's Secretary-General, Mr James N. Okon stated this in a pre-summit press briefing held at the National Press Centre, Abuja, yesterday, adding that the group's extensive research on how to develop agriculture in the country was meant primarily to spear head the engagement of youths in massive agricultural production in Nigeria.
"Our interest is amplified by the fact that when the collective energies of youths are re-directed to the Agricultural sector, the dual problems of youth Unemployment and Food crisis would have been effectively nipped in the bud".
"Nigeria is richly endowed with favourable agro-ecologies, climatic conditions, farming systems and human capacities required to be able to produce both food and cash crops at any scale she might desire, but these endowments have not been optimally exploited and this has resulted in the present condition of food crisis and continual rise in prices of food".
Okon further stated that the research efforts of the group is focused on introducing mechanised farming and specialised forms of agriculture that will be challenging, interesting, and engaging, to graduates and other segments of the society that needed to be actively engaged in the agricultural sector.
He further explained that the establishment of the organisation was in response to the clarion call for agricultural development in Nigeria, adding that it would create, strengthen and sustain the middle level manpower resource-base that would serve as recipe for Nigeria's needed agricultural revolution.
The International Centre for Sustainable Development, has been engaged to optimise management, project processing and corporate governance of the organisation.
The scribe also assured that there would be a National Youth in Agriculture Summit tentatively first week of December, convened to address the specifics of how the group can transit from theory to practice later in the year.
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