The Director-General of the National Directorate of Employment, Mallam Abubakar Mohammed, who revealed this, said the scheme tagged: Commercial Farmers Training Project (CFTP), will ensure that youths acquire farming skills at the NDE agriculture training centres nationwide.
Mohammed, ably represented at the inauguration of the scheme in Ogun State by the state Coordinator, NDE, Mr. Femi Oyenekan, explained that after the training, the youths would form a cooperative group and run the project for a year.
According to Mohammed, 100 beneficiaries in Ogun State, to include school leavers, would undergo a month experiential training in poultry and market garden crop production at the NDE training centre in Odomefi, in the Ijebu East Local Government Area.
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Mohammed said, “The commercial farmers training project will afford our youths the opportunity to embrace farming as a means of livelihood. They will get modern farming skills and techniques at the NDE agriculture training centres nationwide and thereafter, form a cooperative group in 12 selected states.
“The trainee farmers will run the viable project for a year to enhance sustainable employment and linkage with a collaborating bank for start-up capital.”
The head of the state Rural Employment Promotion, Dr. Olusegun Akinremi, said the trainee farmers would be opened to ways of accessing start-up capital with ease from any bank, an insurance back-up from the Nigeria Agricultural Insurance Cooperation and other benefits from agencies of government.