The Youth Initiative for Sustainable Agriculture (YISA) Nigeria, an NGO, has described the agriculture sub-sector of the economy as the “untapped goldmine’’ that can revive Nigeria’s ailing economy.
Mr Ogirinye Innocent, the founder and National Coordinator of YISA-Nigeria, stated this on Tuesday at the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the organisation and the Association of Deans of Agriculture in Nigerian Universities (ADAN).
The ceremony took place during the ongoing 61st Annual General Meeting of ADAN, at the university of Benin, ,with the theme “Breaking Nigeria’s monolithic Economy through Agriculture.’’
Innocent said the objective was to change the mind-set of young people, especially, unemployed graduates, who erroneously believe that agriculture was mainly for ageing peasant farmers.
He said YISA had muted the Agripreneurship Incubation and Mentorship (AIM) programme, its technical corporation and flagship empowerment programme with ADAN to help change this mind set.
“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 opined that the lack of interest among the youth 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. ‘’
He noted: “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 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.
He said the only way to remedy the situation 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 & Plants Nursery beds), Kano (Wheat), Zamfara (Wheat) and Abia (Apiculture); which had built capacity of youths and women in agriculture.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), reports that ADAN is an umbrella body of Deans of faculties and colleges of Agriculture in Nigerian Universities, founded since 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, has promoted the development of rapid and uniformed Agricultural curricula management.
