American climate change youths plot Trump’s downfall

NaijaAgroNet:

The Young Americans may be spoiling for way as they are galvanizing global climate change advocates against Mr. Donald Trump, alleging the presidential candidate for the Republican party wants to destroy the Paris Climate Change deal, reports NaijaAgroNet.

To this end, they are muscling up global youth campaign using the Short Messaging Service (SMS) otherwise known as ‘texting’ to make sure they fail Mr. Trump by simply texting.

Confirming this resolve, in an online petition via Avaaz, the lead advocate, Emma Ruby-Sachs, insisting that Mr. Trump is trying to destroy the global deal on Paris climate change, hence he deserves global campaign against him.

“Trump wants to tear up the Paris climate deal, and that's just the start of his horrifying plans! But now there's a way we can all help stop him, just by texting,” Ruby-Sachs said. 

NaijaAgroNet recalls that Avaaz is a 44-million-person global campaign network that works to ensure that the views and values of the world's people shape global decision-making. Avaaz means "voice" or "song" in many languages has memberships in every nation of the world; whereas its team is spread across 18 countries on 6 continents and operates in 17 languages. 

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1,100 youths for IT, mechanized farming training

 NaijaAgroNet

The AkwaIbom State governor, Udom Emmanuel, said arrangement is in top gear aimed at giving training to about 1100 youths of Akwa Ibom origin in information technology skills and mechanized farming, reports NaijaAgroNet.

He made this revelation in Uyo, when he said; "I am in discussion with Oracle to train at least 1,000 youths in AkwaIbom State on Oracle Database Software Management System."

The Governor who identified that most people employed by banks and companies were those with Oracle certification, NaijaAgroNet gathered, reasoned that Akwa Ibom youths must be equipped with skills that would make them self-reliant.

"I want to make sure that our youths acquire skills so that they can mostly be on their own. We want to facilitate this to help some of our youths to also acquire skills. One thousand is a good number and we can see how we can train them in Uyo to reduce the cost instead of moving them to Lagos,"  he stated.

The governor, the information further hinted said that the state government would send 100 Akwa Ibom youths to Israel by the end of July for training in mechanized farming, describing Israel as an outstanding country with a track record in agriculture: "By end of July, we will send about 100 youths to Israel to acquire some skills and also at the same time do pilgrimage as well.

"Those people that will come back are those that will actually back up our mechanized farming in agriculture. We know, when it comes to agriculture today, Israel is one of the greatest,” NaijaAgroNet reports.

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Niger Delta: 2,200 youths gain skills

NaijaAgroNet

Over 2,200 youths in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria have been empowered in various skills. This revelation was made recently by the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Dr. Steve Oru, NaijaAgroNet

reports.

He stated that under the Goodluck Jonathan’s administration non-militant youths in the region have acquired various skills."Mr. President has been so passionate about the people in the Niger Delta region. It is on the strength of his transformation initiative that the ministry has made progress so far."

Dr. Oru said the youths were trained in oil and gas, agriculture, maritime, seafarers, engineering, information and communications technology (ICT) as well as iPad and telephone assembly, adding that the trainees were all drawn from the nine states of Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Imo, Ondo, and Rivers.

In an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) and monitored by NaijaAgroNet, Oru explained that the training and empowerment programmes for youths in the region was a continuous exercise.

NaijaAgroNet also gathered that the ministry's skills acquisition centres in the nine oil producing states of the Niger Delta region were near completion even though fund is a major challenge but that efforts were being made to bring all the centres on stream.

"The centre in Akwa Ibom and Delta states would concentrate on oil and gas, ICT and maritime studies.The centres in Abia and Imo will train youths in commerce, the one in Cross River is on entertainment and tourism while the Ondo skills acquisition centre will focus on agriculture.

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Bill on mechanised agriculture for youth empowerment on the way--Rep-elect

 NaijaAgroNet

  

 A Bill that will enable the federal government to attract unemployed youths into mechanized agriculture is being planned, NaijaAgroNet reports.

According to information gathered by NaijaAgroNet, Alhaji Abdulsamat Dasuki, member-elect of the House of Representatives (APC-Sokoto) on Sunday promised to initiate a bill that would attract unemployed youths into mechanised agriculture.

In an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Sokoto which was monitored by NaijaAgroNet, Dasuki stated that such legislation would ensure the availability of modern farming inputs at government controlled rates across the country.

He  further disclosed that the youth would be actively engaged in the system to enable them to contribute towards the nation’s socio-economic and political growth.

Dasuki, who will be representing Tambuwal/Kebbe Federal Constituency, said that federal and state governments will be encouraged to set up colleges of agriculture to train the youth and women in mechanised farming.

He said that the introduction of mechanised agriculture NaijaAgroNet learnt, will guarantee food security and  discourage food importation.

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Youth in agriculture’ll Boost Mass Job Creation in Nigeria

NaijaAgroNet:

 

With the recent focus on youths in agriculture, experts have agreed that the huge potential in agriculture will boost mass job creation in Nigeria, reports NaijaAgroNet.

This was the position of South West Regional Director, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) Dr Lekan Quadri at the three-day business training for young entrepreneurs in agriculture, held at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) Ibadan.

Lekan who stood in for the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, made inferences to the links between youth unemployment and the opportunities of an agrarian economy, which he said, could provide the biggest potential for mass job creation, NaijaAgroNet learnt.

Over the years, he said, getting youths in Nigeria to engage in agriculture has been an uphill task. The reasons, NaijaAgroNet gathered, are obvious, stressing that farming, as it is practised in the country, has not been seen as an attractive venture, just as the condition of those who engage in it has been most discouraging.

“However, the tide is changing. It has become obvious that the youths must be given a pride of place if Nigeria and Africa want to create business opportunities for the unemployed,” he said.

NaijaAgroNet further gathered that over 60 youth from six countries across Africa attended the business training aimed at empowering agripreneurs on “Agripreneural and Business Management.”
 
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Edo engages youths in rubber cultivation

Anthony Nwakaegho/NaijaAgroNet

The Edo State government is planning to engage youths in rubber plantation as part of its effort to boost rubber production, NaijaAgroNet reports.

The Edo State Commissioner of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Mr Abdul Oroh disclosed this in Benin and said that investors had indicated interest to invest between N1 billion to N1.5 billion in replanting at the Urhonigbe Rubber Plantation.

NaijaAgroNet learnt from Oroh that the state has to develop new skills to train some people to be able to develop the skill in rubber production because almost 99 per cent of all those tapping rubber in Urhonigbe rubber estate are from Delta State and other states such as Cross River.

It also noted that the plan is to produce extension personnel that will be engaged in the cultivations of about 15,000 new hectares annually for the next 10 years, promote research being done at Rubber Research Institute at Iyanomoh, and to support nurseries production of modern seedlings of high yielding clones.

Oroh explained that it will provide employment, industrial raw materials, improve government’s revenue and the nation’s trade balance and also encourage introduction of high yielding clones that are not locally available at the moment.

*With additional report from BusinessDay

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pix Edo State Gov.Adams Oshiomhole

Why youth shun commercial farming - CAPD

Anthony Nwakaegho/NaijaAgroNet

The youths in Nigeria don’t want to take to commercial farming as some of them still see agriculture from the traditional perspective that put manual implements to use, according to the Lagos State Coordinator for Commercial Agriculture Development Project (CAPD) Mr Kehinde O. Ogunyinka.

In an exclusive interview with NaijaAgroNet, and said that the youth that don’t want to go into commercial farming can go into marketing, instead of crying day and night over unemployment.

Ogunyinka explained that the value chain of agriculture is so long from input to land preparation, production, harvest, transportation and the market, that even the old ones can still be engaged, while the cry for unemployment will be greatly reduced if not eliminated.

“As it is today agricultural production has been simplified. We have machineries to clear the forest/bush. 

There are ploughing, hallowing machines that will do the land preparation and the ridgers for ridges, planters to do the planting and combined harvesters that will do the harvesting and processing.

“So we have all these machines along the production line that will make production of any farming activity easy and remove drudgery from the farm. So the youths can be engaged, as the government under the auspices of Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperative has engaged 400 youths in rice production annually and they are doing well,” he said.

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IITA, ABUAD sign MoU to unlock potentials in Africa

International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Afe Babalola University Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD) in order to unlock Africa's potential in agriculture, natural resources and human.

NaijaAgroNet gathered that the MoU is to serve as a linking bridge between the two institutions to boost cooperation so as to complement each other's research efforts.

Commenting on the MoU, Director General of IITA, Dr. Nteranya Sanginga expressed the institute's excitement over the MoU that IITA is confident to work with ABUAD to tackle hunger and poverty challenges on the continent.

"The MoU will help in building the critical human capital that will address the present and future challenges of not only agriculture but also development," Dr. Sanginga said, adding that agriculture is faced with several constraints like climate change, pests and diseases.

He said the objective of the MoU is a meaningful avenue to engage the youths and give them the tools to be productive.

Specifically, IITA and ABUAD will collaborate in research and development topics of mutual interest, develop joint research and development project proposals, organize joint research activities, conferences, and workshops, establish linkages between IITA and ABUAD scientists, exchange students, and share research materials and publications of common interest.

Vice-Chancellor of ABUAD, Prof. Sidi Osho said the MoU would also help to boost food production and security. Prof. Osho also revealed that the MoU will confer great benefits on the university in terms of international linkages, exchange programs, strengthening research and offering qualitative strategies for administrative capacity.

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