Thursday, September 8,
2016
Over 100,000 graduates
are to be employed by the Federal Government and drafted to farms in all local
government councils across the country, as extension workers to help government
actualise its food production drive.
Minister of Agriculture
and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbe, made this known shortly after he
inspected various Value Chain Development Programme, VCDP, Improved Agronimics
Practice farms at Sumaka and Taraku in Guma and Gwer Local Government areas of
Benue State.
Represented by his Senior
Adviser, International Donor Partners, Mr. Auta Appeh, the minister said the
initiatives were necessary because government "is doing everything to
encourage our youths to take up farming as a business and not as a hobby."
In his speech, National
Programme Coordinator of the International Fund for Agricultural Development,
IFAD-VCDP, Dr. Ameh Onoja, said the organisation had constructed roads, cleared
farmlands and provided inputs through its matching grants to farmers to
galvanise the sector.
Acting Ter Guma, Chief
Gbor Igyo, urged government to urgently provide tractors and other farming
implements and inputs to farmers if the food sufficiency campaign of the
present administration would become a reality.
SOURCE: VANGUARD