Create market channels for agric produce, says Kasali

The Executive Director of the National Centre for Agricultural Mechanisation (NCAM), Ilorin, Kwara State, Dr Yomi Kasali, has canvassed creating market opportunities for agricultural produce in Nigeria to serve as a morale booster for youths and women in agricultural business.

He spoke at the opening ceremony of training on capacity building for youths and women on integrated agricultural entrepreneurship in Ilorin yesterday.

“Today’s youths want instant money. But I think their constraint remains getting ready markets for their produce.

“In the same vein, the population of our women farmers would have been more but for their inability to get instant buyers of their produce. This is what we will tackle frontally at this training programme. We will open up various marketing channels through adequate awareness for them to get them enriched.”

The 60 participants were drawn from Kano, Kogi, Edo, Niger, Osun, Ogun, Anambra, Delta and Nassarawa states.

Explaining the concepts of the training, the NCAM boss said the participants would be taken through the rudiments of simultaneous multiple systemic farm techniques of snail farming, poultry, dairy and farming on the same portions of land.

“The idea is to maximise the land and ensure that the waste products of one section serves as positive inputs for the others. This will eradicate waste and usher in bumper harvests. Besides, it will reduce the gap of fund paucity in the lives of the farmers, because if a section is not ripe for harvest, other sections will,” he said.

Kasali, while advocating workable synergy between elected council chairmen and traditional rulers in Nigeria as a long-term solution to insecurity in the rural areas, believed that the development would encourage more farmers to cultivate over 90 per cent of arable land in the country.

Three of the participants, Toyin Alamu from Oyo State, Ngozi Nwose from Anambra State and Sanusi Amedu from Nasarawa State, promised diligent participation in the programme just as they thanked the Federal Government and NCAM for providing them the platform for learning.