The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security has produced 120 farmers in Ogun, Kogi and Oyo states in order to put an end to food scarcity in the country and create jobs.
This is as the Ministry trained 120 youths to become small scale poultry farmers in the three states, with a major focus on broilers production as a sustainable means of making daily incomes.
While speaking during the training in Abeokuta on Tuesday, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, Dr Ernest Umakhihe, said Nigeria must be able to feed itself.
Represented by the South West Regional Director, Mrs Abimbola Akeredolu, Umakhihe said “the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security is committed to promoting and facilitating policies aimed at making Nigeria self-sufficient in food production.”
The training, the Permanent Secretary disclosed, is to expose the smallholder farmers to the profitability of broilers production as a commercial business to earn a sustained living.
He said those from Ogun and Oyo were trained in Abeokuta, while their Kogi counterparts were trained at Lokoja.
In his own remarks, a Director in the Federal Department of Agricultural Extension Services, Dr Deola Lordbanjou, advised the trained farmers to avail themselves of the opportunities provided by the smallholder poultry production enterprise, which he said “is highly profitable and can give farmers a flow of steady income”.
The 120 farmers were exposed to modern technologies of broiler production, even as the Ministry gave each of them day-old chicks and feeds to raise them, especially for the upcoming festive season.