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Employment to rise in Government’s new Agriculture scheme for youth

The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr Godwin Emefiele, has said that Federal Government will begin step to commence its agriculture initiative which will provide jobs for 360, 000 youths nationwide.

Mr Emefiele made this known in Abuja at the Stakeholders’ meeting on the operational framework for the Accelerated Agricultural Development Scheme (AADS).

He said the scheme is for unemployed youth between the ages of 18 and 35 years and 10,000 youths from each state that are willing to engage in sustainable and profitable business towards agriculture would be employed and trained.

“I believe we are on the verge of something very significant with the AADS.

“This scheme has been designed to create an ecosystem with the active participation of the public sector, state governments and the private sector”

The CBN Governor explained that the objectives of AADS is to enlarge farming scale and that State Governments are expected to provide contiguous tillable land, infrastructures to aid beneficiaries.

“It will also assist famers in embracing modern farming practices, such as use of tractors and irrigation schemes.

“It aims to reduce cost of production with availability of high quality inputs at competitive prices and lowering delivery cost of extension services.

“The CBN on its part will provide financing at single digit interest rates.

“Beneficiaries are not expected to come up with any physical collateral but they must be grouped into formally registered cooperatives and cross-guarantee each other.

“All loan beneficiaries must also have valid Bank Verification Numbers (BVN), which will be registered on the National Collateral Registry and used to track repayments and also blacklist any defaulters.

Minister of Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbe, who was also at the meeting, noted that the Ministry would be providing its support to aid the project.

“We will be fully involved in the land clearing aspect of the project. In some places we will also be building dams and lakes to ensure all season farming.

“We will also provide advice because we have a team of experts at the ministry on crops, soil testing and the right kind of fertiliser so that when these young people go into agriculture, they won’t lose money.”

In the recent findings of National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), 14.2 per cent of Nigerians are unemployed and a huge number of them are Youth.

The new agriculture scheme will reduce the rate of unemployment to a large extent, it is hoped.

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