World Poverty Day: GEJ calls Youths to embrace Agriulture

The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Dr Precious Gbeneol, has appealed to youths across Nigeria to embrace agriculture as a means of viable employment, by taking advantage of the various policies of the government.

Dr Gbeneol, who said this on the occasion of World Poverty Day, on Thursday, noted that putting more people to work remained the most sustainable way to eradicate poverty.

The presidential adviser said Nigeria had made progress in its efforts to eradicate extreme poverty since the country, alongside others, adopted the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000.

She noted that Nigeria had partly achieved the goal one, which dealt with eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, ahead of target date of 2015, by reducing the proportion of people suffering from hunger by 50 per cent.

Nigeria was honoured for the achievement at the week-long 38th session of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), in Rome, earlier in the year.

FAO had indicated that Nigeria got the award because it had been able to reduce the number of its citizens suffering from hunger from 19.31 million in 1990 and 1992 to 13.38 million in 2010 and 2012.

Gbeneol noted that the Ministry of Agriculture had, in the past three years, been able to train 5,000 youths in 10 different value chains and provide start-up packages for 6,000 youths, including access to credit and other inputs through the Growth Enhancement Scheme (GES); training of 2,500 women in poultry, bull fattening, sheep and goat production, bee keeping, crop value chains and extension, among others.

She called on the private sector to come up with more creative ways of creating employment as a means of alleviating poverty.

De Edge Farms