The Lagos State Government will empower 300 Youth Agripreneurs and 400 pig farmers in the 2021 Agricultural Value Chains Empowerment Programme.
The State Commissioner for Agriculture, Ms Abisola Olusanya, stated this at the sensitisation programme for beneficiaries of the empowerment programme on Sunday at Alausa.
Olusanya said that the beneficiaries would start receiving the empowerment support from the state government on July 29.
She said that the 300 beneficiaries were selected from among the outstanding participants from the Lagos Agripreneurship Programme (LAP) and the Agricultural Youth Empowerment Scheme (Agric-YES).
Olusanya said that the programme was imperative following the state government’s resolve to create an enabling environment to make the agriculture sector attractive to the youths.
She said the breakdown of the 300 beneficiaries include 240 aquaculture farmers and 60 poultry farmers.
According to her, 80 of the aquaculture beneficiaries would be accommodated in the government facility in Araga, Epe while the remaining 160 would be at the Lagos Food Production Center, Avia, Badagry.
Olusanya said that each of the 240 aquaculture beneficiaries would be empowered with 700 juveniles, 25 bags of feed as well as medication worth N380,000.
She added that each of the 60 poultry beneficiaries would be given 480 point of lay, 100 bags of feed and medication valued at N1.8 million.
Olusanya stressed that the youths were the future of agriculture as they would be the ones to replace the aged and aging farmers and agripreneurs in the state.
“Under the mandate of Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, after exclusive deliberations around what we need to do to make this year’s empowerment different, we felt it imperative that we could not keep training people and also pushing them out into the market to fend for themselves.
“We felt that we need to give them the mentorship and resources to help them stand on their own and become business owners.
“The idea is, we will empower you, but we want you to be within a location where our people can provide support services, professional advice and bring people with technology to help you improve, make better money and increase your yield,” she said.
The commissioner stated that this year’s empowerment programme was different as it essentially focuses on three specific value chains, poultry, piggery and aquaculture (artisanal fisheries).
She disclosed that the beneficiaries would also be supported with extension services as well as facilitate donor agencies to the incubation centres in order to provide support for the agripreneurs.
Olusanya said that the agriculture sector was most affected by the pandemic and the outbreak of zoonotic diseases.
The commissioner added that the Gberige and Oke-Aro Piggery Estates’ farmers were badly hit by the African Swine Fever which practically cleared out the livestock in the estates.
Olusanya said that as such 400 pig farmers from the two estates have been earmarked to receive three pig growers each as well as regular veterinary services.
She said that four groups of pig processors would also receive smoking kilns as empowerment.
“We have always done the agricultural empowerment programme but this year, it’s different and the reason is that we are introducing the sensitisation angle to it.
“This sensitisation essentially is to share information for them to be aware of what they will be getting and what the structure of the empowerment is going to be like.
“We felt it was very important for everyone to be on the same page and also to begin to create that bridge of trust.
“The reason why there is so much distrust in government is because the information is probably not shared well and people make judgments based on their own assumptions of this.
“Using this platform, there are no assumptions, we have cleared every doubt from the minds of our people.
“It is only for them to see on that day of the empowerment that we are bringing to them all that we have said we will bring for them,” the commissioner added.
(NAN)