The Chief Executive Officer of Enterprise Grooming Institute (EGI), Prince Ayo Ajisefini has proffer ways by which government at all levels can make farming attractive to the Nigerian youth.
He advised government to provide conducive environment for mechanised agriculture to take away the drudgery associated with it to attract young people to the farms for economic development.
He gave the advice during a seminar organised for potential entrepreneurs by the institute in Ilorin, Kwara State, on Saturday.
He stressed that the youth needs to be woo into the sector through government loans and grants to boost food availability and productivity in the country.
“By so doing, efforts would not be dissipated by farmers, who would rather maximise scarce resources to achieve desired good harvest .”
He said Nigeria evidently does not have food security, as a result of certain factors that militate against farming.
Most food producers in the country, he stated, reside in the rural areas and are small farm holders and do not have the capital to transit to large-scale, mechanised farming.
Ajisefini maintained that the issue of herdsmen and farmers have posed a serious challenge as most farmers now cultivate in fears and cannot expand their farms to certain areas in the country.
He added: “Nigeria’s food problem is not insurmountable if adequate attention is paid to the agricultural processes. unless this is changed for mechanised farming, young people would continue to give farming cold shoulders.”
On EGI, he revealed that the institute render products loans of worth N20,000 to farmers without low interest rate
According to him the sensitisation programme is targeted at exposing the entrepreneurs to the rich benefit of farming agriculture crops and vegetables.
