Farms To Be Opened Nationwide For NYSC - Youth Minister

The farms could help revive interest in agriculture among Nigerian youth, the government said.
The Federal Government said on Thursday that it would reopen the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) farms in each state of the federation.
The Minister for youth Development, Inuwa Abdulkadir, said this in an interview in Jos, Plateau State.

Mr. Abdulkadir said that the establishment of the farms would go a long way to complement the existing NYSC Loan Revolving Scheme aimed at engaging the corps members in agriculture
“Year in year out, every batch of the NYSC has been participating. But you know, it’s still a pilot programme but we intend to expand and re-open NSYC farms across the country and utilise them.
“This is going to be in partnership with the state governments and the Bank of Agriculture and the Small and Medium Scale Development Agency of Nigeria.
“The whole idea is to expose them to agro business enterprise so that at the end of the day, they can become self-employed or even employers,” he said.
According to him, once the youth are involved in agriculture, it will be of immense benefit to the nation as it will create employment opportunities and boost the economy.
“When they are in multiples the nation stands to benefit, because we will have more people involved in agriculture and that will boost the economy.
“The most concrete thing we are thinking of doing and we will start soon, is this partnership with the Development Bank to boost agriculture and to encourage young persons to go into agro-business from production, to processing, to marketing,” he said.
The minister said he was optimistic that the current drive at making agriculture attractive and lucrative to the youth would reduce the rate of unemployment in Nigeria.

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