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)


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