Adebayo Adenrele
Ekiti State Commissioner for Information, Taiwo Olatunbosun has charged youths in the State to recognize and take advantage of the various opportunities made available to them through several interventions by Governor Biodun Oyebanji to flourish in spite of the prevailing global economic downturn.
Olatunbosun who gave the charge in Ado Ekiti, described the opportunities provided by Government for them to make a good living as enormous, stressing the need to stop concentrating on scarce white-collar jobs.
Reiterating the commitment of Governor Oyebanji administration to creation of job opportunities and improving the economic climate in the state, Olatunbosun said his approach included promotion of both the public and private sectors, as well as leveraging the state’s resources to foster sustainable development.
The Commissioner highlighted some of the key strategies and initiatives employed by the State Government to include promoting Agriculture and Agribusiness, support for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), attracting investments, infrastructure development, youth empowerment and skills development, Tourism and Cultural Development as well as Public-Private Partnerships (PPP).
According to him, agriculture has been a major focus of the Oyebanji’s administration and the governor has been working to modernize agriculture, increase food production, and create agribusiness ventures. He stressed the determination of the Governor to create job opportunities in agriculture particularly for youths and women by investing in modern farming techniques, providing access to training, and improving infrastructure like rural roads and irrigation, adding that the establishment of agro-processing industries is encouraged to provide both direct and indirect job opportunities in the state.
Olatunbosun said the recent State Executive Council’s (SEC) approval to establish a replica of the Ekiti Broilers Production Scheme (EBOPS) located at Erifun in Ado Ekiti was a follow-up on the success of the scheme, adding that 120 participants were engaged in the arrangement with the first batch made up of 20 youths producing 40,000 table-sized chickens and made profit of more than N20million that was used as seed capital to set them up as poultry owners.
He listed other interventions to include partnership with Cavista Holding to boost cassava farming and develop off take markets for farmers in Ekiti State, allocation of 1,535 hectares of arable land to 66 farmers and investors across the two farm settlements and five farm centres, payment of N60M as counterpart funding for the World Bank-financed L-PRES counterpart contribution to develop the livestock sector, and the activation of $800,000 support from the World Bank. Olatunbosun added that the State is also collaborating with Federal Government (FG) to register farmers for the FG National AGRO pocket scheme (NAGS-AP) and distribution of inputs, mapping and profiling of livestock farmers with 11,000 farmers already profiled while setting up the Grievance Redress Platforms in each of the Local Government to the State level to address the friction between herders and farmers and subsidized mechanization services at 50% rate to more than one thousand beneficiaries.
He said the Government in addition distributed Agro chemicals worth N80m and 18,000 bags of assorted fertilizer to all farmers within the state at no cost to the farmers, more than 15,000kg of improved maize seeds, 3,000kg of faro 44 and 59 rice seeds, 20,000 seedlings of oil palm, 20,000 cocoa seedlings, and 10,000 cashew seedlings to farmers.
Olatunbosun recalled that “the State Government initiated and commenced a land cluster farming in the State under which 913 youths were engaged in the Bring-Back-the-Youth into Agric Programme in Partnership with YSJ Limited and currently cultivating various crops in land clusters across the State”.
“Another 125 interested youths were engaged to participate in horticultural production while desiltation was carried out and pipes laid from the dam to the farm plots in Erifun to ensure all the year vegetable production”.