By Adewale Banjo
National Directorate of Employment (NDE), under the post-Sustainable Agricultural Development Training Scheme (SADTS), has empowered 1,900 participants nationwide.
The empowerment, which was carried out in the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, was to enhance skills in agricultural performances and improve food supply to the country.
Some of the participants, having been granted loans of N100,000 each, are expected to improve on their farm inputs and productivity to reduce poverty.
Minimum number of 50 participants, who hitherto were beneficiaries of NDE agriculture programmes and schemes from each of the 36 states across the federation and the FCT, Abuja, were selected to benefit from the exercise.
According to NDE Director General, Mallam Abubakar Nuhu Fikpo, government is doing all it can to encourage the youths to accept agriculture as means of livelihood.
“Government has expanded the scope of sources of funding for agricultural projects with the aim of enhancing quality of life for farmers and society as a whole.
“The SADTS aims at empowering the beneficiaries to establish, grow and expand agric-enterprises of their choice on a sustainable basis.
“Most importantly, training the participants on modern agricultural best practices would ultimately assist them to be more profit-oriented in their businesses with the ability to repay their loans for others to benefit,” he said.
The director general said 5,508 participants had benefitted from loan empowerment after the mandatory completion of agric training schemes ranging from Agricultural Enhancement Scheme, Graduate Agricultural Empowerment Scheme and Community Based Agricultural Development Empowerment Scheme. The soft loans were with 9 per cent interest rate having six months moratorium.
The director general, at the commencement of the training event in the Agric Skill Centre, Bwari, FCT, Abuja, said the post-SADTS training is “a specialised one week intensive agric-coaching exercise with structured interventions in agricultural practices to improve seeds, seedlings and productivity for better harvest.”
He said the exercise is also to assist the beneficiaries to enhance capacity and knowledge towards bumper harvest.
The Rural Employment Promotion Programme of the NDE, under which the empowerment took place, was designed with the objectives of generating rural employment and improving incomes through agri-business engagements, promoting the adoption of improved technologies in post-harvest handling, good storage as well as promoting other non-farm rural employment activities to stem the rural-urban drift.
NDE said 301,316 direct and indirect jobs were created by the NDE under agricultural value chain in 2021.