The Federal Government of Nigeria is targeting 1,200 Agricultural Equipment Hiring Centres (AEHCs) by end of 2016, says
President Goodluck Jonathan, reports NaijaAgroNet.
Speaking to NaijaAgroNet recently in Abuja, the nation’s capital, at
the launch of Youth Employment in Agriculture Programme (YEAP), President Jonathan also disclosed that before
December 31, 2014 some 80 Agricultural Equipment Hiring Enterprises (AEHEs) will
spring up.
He
explained that AEHEs launch by his leadership is motivated to pave the way for
the future agriculture programme pleasant to the youth generation who will see
agriculture as business and devoid of undue hardwork will adequate fruit for
their labour and as part of effort by Federal Government to mechanize
agriculture.
Jonathan also explained that AEHEs is a private sector driven programme that will provide
mechanized services for farmers across the country.
“While
over the next two years, a total of 1,200 of the Agricultural Equipment Hiring
Centers would be established across the nation,” he said.
To
achieve the drive to encourage young commercial farmers, Jonathan told
NaijaAgroNet, concerted effort must be made to take the hoes and cutlasses away
from the farms and replace them with tractors and mechanized equipment.
“The
Youth Employment in Agriculture Programme
(YEAP), which I am flagging off today, will further change the face of
Nigeria’s agriculture. YEAP has been designed to create a new generation of
750,000 young commercial farmers and agribusiness leaders (Nagropreneurs) that will make
Nigeria’s agriculture more efficient, profitable and competitive. They will
become the CEOs of their own farms and agribusinesses, create jobs in the rural
areas and reverse the trend of high rural to urban migration. They will help to
change the mindset of the younger generation on agriculture,” he declared.
These
Nagropreneurs, President Jonathan said,
will become models and champions for our newly launched National Agriculture
Schools Initiative, as they project to younger school children, the image of
agriculture as an attractive and wealth creating sector.
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