Agriculture will help Nigeria tackle unemployment says Governor Wike




Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike has stated that investments in agriculture will help the nation tackle youth unemployment .


Speaking during a courtesy visit by the Minister of Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbeh and Minister of State for Agriculture, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri at the Government House Port Harcourt on Wednesday, Governor Wike said agriculture is essential to the revival of the nation's economy.


He said: "If Nigeria must move to the next level, agriculture is key. To reduce unemployment, we must focus on agriculture ".

The governor lauded the Minister of Agriculture for displaying maturity by ensuring that the issues of food production are insulated from politics.

The governor said that his administration is developing a public private partnership model to enhance the development of agriculture.

He said: "We are developing the cassava factory to improve the commercial farming of the product. We are also working with a private company to revive our rubber factory".

He informed that his administration is working with the Rivers State University to revive the College of Agriculture at Onne for the training of agricultural professionals.

Governor Wike said that the State Government will collaborate with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture to improve key aspects of the State Agricultural Sector.

In his remarks, Minister of Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbeh said unless the youth are reintroduced to agriculture, the country will always have security challenges as most urban youths are idle.


He said issues of agriculture must be placed above politics in the overall interest of the country.

The Minister said that Rivers State has the potentials to be a major source of fish for the entire country.

The Ministers of Agriculture and all the Commissioners of Agriculture are Rivers State for the National Council of Agriculture.



 Minister of Agriculture for State, Mr Heineken Lokpobiri, Minister of Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbeh, Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, Rivers State Commissioner of Agriculture, Mrs Onimim Jacks during the visit of the Ministers of Agriculture to Governor Wike at the Government House, Port Harcourt on Wednesday.

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