SDGs office trains 150 agric. extension workers in Gombe


The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) office in Gombe State has trained 150 agricultural extension workers, Malam Muhammad Umar, the Permanent Secretary, SDGs Gombe, said.

Umar told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Gombe on Thursday that the trainees were graduates with diploma in Agriculture.

He said they were deployed to rural communities across the state to assist farmers.

The permanent secretary added that the training was part of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) project of 2015 which was not executed.

According to him, the office still has some 2016 MDGs projects not executed but is trying to do them and round up before the commencement of SDG projects.

He explained that the office initially wanted to train the agriculture graduates in fish farming “but because of shortage of extension workers in the state, we
changed the plan.

“We were made to understand that Gombe was in dire need of agricultural extension workers, hence the need to train them.”

It would be recalled that Gombe State had blamed the decline in maize yield from 500,000 metric tonnes to 300,000 in 2016 to the lack of adequate agricultural extension workers.

Mr Sunday Lay, the Director of Agricultural Extension with the Gombe Agricultural Development Programme, said the number of extension workers in the state was
grossly inadequate.

Lay said most of the workers were retired, with few left on Grade Level 14 and about to retire. (NAN)


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tomato disease outbreak: Institute appeals for research funding

The National Horticultural Research Institute, Ibadan, has appealed for funding to carry out research and create awareness on the tuta absoluta pest on tomatoes. The Institute’s Head of Vegetable Programme, Dr Olagorite Adetula, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ibadan on Friday that there was an urgent need to tackle the problem to save the economy. Adetula said the institute needed money to do surveillance survey of the pest/damage, ascertain the impact of the damage and proffer solution for eradicating the pest. She appealed to the Federal Government to help the institute get pheromones to lure and trap the pests and distribute to farmers. ``Spraying insecticides is not the best, the pest has high production rate, some of them can escape while spraying it and they will be resistant to the insecticide thereby causing us more cost. ``The pheromones can be used for six to eight weeks before changing it, it is very effective, the pest has short life cycle, wit
Read more

10,000 women farmers to be engaged in ECOWAS rice project – official

Image
 Mr Richard Olafare, the President, Seed Entrepreneurs Association of Nigeria (SEEDAN) says 10,000 women will be engaged in the recently inaugurated Rice Seed Up-Scaling Project. This is contained in a presentation on the project made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Friday. Olafare said 8,000 youths would also be engaged in the scaling project. According to him, the number of women and youths represented 50 per cent and 40 per cent respectively of the 20,000 farmers that will participate in the project. NAN reports that the project is an initiative of the West Africa Seed Programme (WASP) in support of the ECOWAS Rice Offensive Programme that was inaugurated in 2014. Among other objectives, it is targeting the production of 60,000 metric tonnes of paddy rice for Nigeria by December 2017, using 1,200 certified seeds. The project is being implemented by SEEDAN in collaboration with the West and Central Africa Council for Agricultural Re
Read more

NEGPRO project can create more jobs with inclusion of meat production— Badmus

•Tuns Farm leads food safety, quality system audit The Chairman , Tuns Farms Nigeria, Asiwaju Olatunde Badmus, has disclosed that the proposed one million jobs expected to be created through the National Egg Production Scheme (NEGPRO) can be doubled if extended to meat production. He made this known when a team from the office of the Vice President, Federal Ministries of Agriculture, Health and Education at the company’s headquarters in Osogbo, the Osun state capital recently. Olatunde Badmus, while sharing the company’s experience on chicken inclusion in the Osun state’s school meal program which the company has been handling since the introduction of the school feeding program four years ago, said they can achieve so much more in terms of job creation through meat production “As we speak, six state governors among who are Kebbi and Borno, have signalled their government’s preparedness to look into this and have invited TUNS farm to their states to discuss modalities for
Read more