Empowering youths for agriculture

Recently, the Permanent Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Mr. Sunny Echono disclosed that the ministry has commenced the process of empowering 30,000 youths for job in the agricultural sector. Speaking during a stakeholders meeting with poultry farmers, he said the empowerment is being undertaken under the Youth Empowerment in Agriculture Programme (YEAP). Expatiating further, Echono said that 250 candidates would be selected each from the states and the Federal Capital Territory, (FCT) Abuja under the first phase of the initiative. We heartily welcome this initiative and all the promise it holds for agricultural revolution in Nigeria.
With nearly 60 per cent of the country’s population residing in rural areas and the majority youths, their poor participation in farming and the agricultural economy must be a matter of concern to all. However, if young people living in the rural areas do not find enough incentives, profitable economic opportunities and attractive environments in which to live and work, they will continue to migrate to the cities and the opportunity to attract a steady flow of investments to transform Nigeria’s agricultural sector will be missed. Moreover, without training in skills suited to the urban labour market, these youth have few opportunities in urban areas. Inadequately trained to compete successfully in urban labour markets, they often suffer worse levels of poverty and marginalisation in towns than in rural areas.
Invariably, with agriculture’s major role in the rural economy, it has significant potential to provide solutions to the current problems of youth unemployment in the country and significantly reduce rural-urban migration. Getting young Nigerians in agriculture is a necessity since most of the country’s subsistence farmers are elderly and dying off. If proper incentives are not available to the succeeding generation to engage in agriculture, it will leave a vacuum in the sector.
It is fact that youth unemployment is a worldwide problem and Nigeria has its fair share of it. It is therefore encouraging to note that the youth agriculture empowerment is being coordinated by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture. Nevertheless, with little education and lack of opportunities within and outside farming, majority of the rural youth do not know what to do for earning their livelihoods. Incidentally, they also see high risk, high input agriculture being practiced with unpredictable returns. They have been observing their parents, following conventional farming, toiling hard on the farms, hardly making a decent living. For young people to take to agriculture, farming must be both intellectually satisfying and economically rewarding.
Truth is that more than 50 percent of the country’s population is under the age of 25, and with additional 100 million young people entering the labour force between now and 2035.
Even under the most optimistic projections, non-farm wage jobs will be able to absorb only half of the additional workers, which means that for at least the next several decades, farming will be the most assured means of providing gainful employment for at least a third of youths entering the labour force. The youth have not only the potential to make agriculture sustainable and with proper guidance, they can lead communities towards achieving local food security. We believe governments at all levels can make agriculture attractive to the youth if the incentives become attractive. For now, the sector is not attractive because of challenges such as poor funding and lack of enabling environment. Therefore, government must invest meaningfully in agriculture to remove these obstacles and make it attractive and profitable. Despite the grim realities, there is a brighter future in agriculture. For that to happen, there must be improvements in
electricity and irrigation, coupled with smart business and trade policies.