The Federal Government said on
Thursday that it would reopen National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) farms
in each state of the federation. The Minister for youth Development, Dr Inuwa Abdulkadir, said this in an interview in Jos, Plateau. Abdulkadir said that the establishment of the farms would go a long
way to complement the existing NYSC Loan Revolving Scheme aimed at
engaging the corps members in agriculture “Year in year out, every batch of the NYSC has been participating.
But you know, it’s still a pilot programme but we intend to expand and
reopen NSYC farms across the country and utilise them. “This is going to be in partnership with the state governments and
the Bank of Agriculture and the Small and Medium Scale Development
Agency of Nigeria. “The whole idea is to expose them to agro business enterprise so that
at the end of the day, they can become self-employed or even employers.
”
According to him, once the youth are involved in agriculture, it will
be of immense benefit to the nation as it will create employment
opportunities and boost the economy.
“When they are in multiples the nation stands to benefit, because we
will have more people involved in agriculture and that will boost the
economy. “The most concrete thing we are thinking of doing and we will start
soon, is this partnership with the Development Bank to boost agriculture
and to encourage young persons to go into agro-business from
production, to processing, to marketing. The minister said he was optimistic that the current drive at making
agriculture attractive and lucrative to the youth would reduce the rate
of unemployment in the country. (NAN)
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