Government Trains Imo Youths On Sustainable Agriculture
The National Directorate of Employment, NDE, has commenced the training of 100 youths on sustainable agricultural development skills in Imo state, South-Eastern, Nigeria.
Director-General of the NDE, Mallam Abubakar Nuhu-Fikpo, flagged off the training in Owerri on Thursday.
Represented by NDE’s Director of Planning, Research and Statistics, Mr Edmund Onwuliri, Nuhu-Fikpo, said the training was part of the directorate’s Sustainable Agriculture Development Training Scheme, SADTS.
He said the training, holding in 12 states of the federation, “aimed at creating jobs for people in rural communities.”
The director-general added that the training, focus on modern innovative technology in agriculture, would last for three months.
The DG also said that each trainee would receive the sum of N5,000 per month as a transport allowance.
According to him, the 100 beneficiaries would “be trained on vegetable farming, snail, poultry, and pig farming with their value chains.”
“ This training will surely create more jobs for people in rural communities and reduce rural to urban migration.
“ The NDE attaches a high premium to the empowerment of people and is therefore fully prepared to work with the state government to achieve this”, he said.
Mrs Chisara Egwim-Chima,NDE Coordinator in Imo, said the time had come for rural dwellers to overcome poverty, unemployment, economic backwardness, and hunger through better agricultural practices and improved food production.
She advised the beneficiaries to be punctual and committed to the training so as to justify the resources expended on the scheme.
A representative of the Association of Micro Credit Institutions of Nigeria, Mrs Comfort Nweke, commended the NDE for the initiative.
She promised that micro start-up loans would be made available to the beneficiaries upon completion of the training.
Mr Onyedikachi Chikaodi,Special Adviser to Gov. Hope Uzodinma on Religious Mobilization restated the state government’s readiness to support NDE to create more jobs and fight unemployment in the state.
NAN/Shakirat Sadiq
