Farm expert woos Abia over fund for Agric dev

An agricultural development organisation, Livelihood Improvement Farming Enterprise, has advised Abia State to key into the programmes of International Fund for Agricultural Development.

The Programmes Manager, Livelihood Improvement Farming Enterprise, Dr. Samuel Erimie, stated this in Umuahia, while paying a courtesy call on Governor Okezie Ikpeazu, stating that the team works with the International Fund for Agricultural Development and was in the state to find out whether the state would be interested in its intervention.

Dr. Erimie advised the state government to key into the programme of LIFE-DESIGN, a programme of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

He informed that the programme focuses on enterprise development on women and youths in the Niger Delta, stressing that if women and youths are empowered, the nation would have been empowered.

Responding, Abia State Governor, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu, expressed the readiness of the state to key into the programme of LIFE-DESIGN, and commended the idea of empowering and exposing women and youths to the concept of economic development through agriculture, stressing that the benefits of agriculture cannot be over-emphasised.

Abia, he said, has an existing data-base of its youths who have been profiled that would assist them in carrying-out the business and advised the team to make good use of it, advocating that special attention be given to youths from the oil producing areas.