The Agricultural Social Entrepreneurship foundation (ASEF International) has signed a memorandum of understanding with the New Generation Nutrition (Netherlands) and FIDAS Africa on training of Africans on insect farming.
The objective of the MOU, conducted at the Business Incubation Platform Office of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), is to make the training on Black Soldier Fly accessible to youths and women in Africa.
The CEO of FIDAS Africa, Omolola Elsie Oludare, said the training is targeted at 100,000 Africans with 40,000 slots reserved for Nigerians. She further mentioned that the platform will also train 100 specialist/experts in the value chain to be deployed for gainful employment across Africa.
Omolola stressed that it is the desire of FIDAS Africa to promote agriculture and food security in Africa.
The CEO of ASEF, Rosemary Omoyeni Adebayo, mentioned that the role of ASEF is to promote agricultural development and contribute to food security in Africa. She added that ASEF will be providing 90 per cent subsidy to the training, thus making more Africans access the programme.
Omoyeni, who stated that training in other African countries are scheduled to commence in the second half of 2024, mentioned that they have reached out to 9,000 religious outfits, all Governors in Nigeria, relevant ministries and financial institutions to get support for youths and women to access the training.
She implored Nigerians looking to explore new and less risky agricultural venture to start looking into insect farming.
Talking about the Waste4meal project, the visionary and representative of the waste4meal project, Azeez Oluwole Saheed said the project is designed to combine waste management, climate action, food security and agricultural real estate in a single project.
He mentioned that the project is a novel initiative that will reduce the countries dependencies on importation of animal feed and support local feed mills in sourcing of animal protein in the feed milling. Saheed added that the project will create about 100,000 jobs across multiple countries in Africa, with 40,000 direct jobs created across 28 states in Nigeria and 160,000 indirect jobs created along the value chain over a period of five to seven years.
The Nigerian representative of NGN, Mr. John Olabisi Amole, expressed his joy and enthusiasm regarding project waste4meal and the impact the project is set to have across Africa. Amole, who conducted the first training cohort, mentioned that it is great delight to see that a project as Waste4meal emerged from the cohort earlier conducted in IITA.
The Founder and CEO of NGN, Marian Peters, from the Netherlands mentioned the geographical advantage of sub-Saharan Africa in maximizing the insect value chain. Marian also mentioned the strong relationship already established with the University of Ibadan regarding insect farming and training and the opportunities available for youths to engage in a relatively less risky agricultural venture.
The Guest of honour at the event, The Director General, Oyo State Agribusiness Development Agency (OYSADA) and the CEO of BIP, Dr Debo Akande, represented by Mr Wole Oladokun, congratulated the parties to the MOU and promises to provide necessary support towards the success of the project and benefits of Nigerians.
