The Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) and the Industrial Training Fund (ITF) are partnering with some companies on capacity building and training.
NECA and ITF have met with Kamjay Farms Limited, a poultry/aquaculture outfit, on ways to train more youths to embrace farming.
Speaking during tour of the company, ITF Director-General Dr. Juliet Chukkas-Onaeko, said more people would be trained when NECA and IFFcollaborate with more companies, the agricultural sector, she noted, is larger than other sectors in terms of employment and job creation. She also stressed the need for government’s support for their activities.
The company trains 25 to 30 youth per batch. However, Dr. Onaeko said the number would be increased to 100 next year to accommodate those who wish to key into the programme.
The Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Kamjay Farms Limited, Mr Bode Oyedele, said real growth cannot be achieved without the agricultural sector.
“If we are talking of real growth, we cannot leave out agriculture because without it, there is no life, there is no economy,” he said.
He stressed the need for support from the government, especially for the trained youths to stand on their feet.
With the collaboration of NECA and ITF, Oyedele said, Kamjay had been able to train more youths on various aspects of agriculture. He disclosed that the trainees were more interested in the aspect of fingerlings rearing because it is more lucrative than others and requires less capital to set up.
“Because Lagos is an aquatic state, we initially concentrated on aquaculture, but our students and the trainees showed much interest in fingerlings so we have to do more of that,” he explained, adding that with few pieces of fingerlings (two males and three females), one could produce about 25,000 fingerlings within a short period of time and realise about N750,000. A fingerling is sold for N30.
He added that many people were keying into fingerling production because of its higher demand. Oyedele, who said he has keyed into the Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA) of the administration, explained that his company is the only firm approved to supply fingerlings to farmers in Lagos State under the GES scheme.
However, with the present 500,000 production capacity, the company is yet to meet up with the demand for the fingerlings in the state. Oyedele, however, explained that the support of NECA and ITF in the procurement of feed mills has helped the company to increase its production and produce feeds for its own farm and other farmers in Lagos State.
He called on the Federal Government to subsidise agricultural products for the growth of the real sector, saying that unlike any other goods, price of agricultural products could not be easily controlled by the farmers.
For example, he said, while the price of feed mills keeps soaring, the price of eggs has not changed in the market.
The aim of NECA/ITF collaboration is to get youths out of unemployment by giving them training on poultry, aquaculture and other aspects of agriculture to be job creators.
NECA’s Director-General, Mr. Segun Oshinowo, said the purpose of the synergy is to reduce the rate of unemployment among youths by training them on how they can create jobs even with little capital at their disposal.
“By being here, we hope to create jobs by getting the youths trained so that they can stand on their own,” he said, noting that there are huge potentials in the agricultural sector especially, in the area of aquaculture.
The NECA boss appealed to the government to support the initiatives with funds as both organisations lack financial capacity to carry out their assignments.
