Currently,
Nigeria is taking giant strides towards encouraging youths in participating in
agribusiness ventures. Statistics show that the average age of the Nigerian
farmer is 55 years and if nothing is done to force this down, when this phase of
farmers pass, there would be no new generation of farmers hence a possible
major food crisis.
Recently,
The Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) in
collaboration with the Zamfara state government trained 7,000 graduates in
developing skills in agribusiness. Another key programme is the Youth
Employment in Agriculture and Rural Development which was launched by the
erstwhile Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development and now African Development
Bank President; Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina. Adesina stated that the programme would
develop 18,500 university graduates who will be formed into young agribusiness
entrepreneurs called nagropreneurs. In his words, ‘’…they will develop business
along the various agriculture value chains from the farms, storage, processing,
value addition, financial services and logistics. Together with the recently
launched presidential school initiative, we will connect the young school
children in agriculture to the nagropreneurs and they will become the new
millionaires and billionaires of Nigeria’’.
