President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday, launched the
National Schools Agriculture Programme (NSAP) aimed at developing a new
generation of youth agriculture enthusiasts from secondary schools.The pilot
phase of the programme, a School Agribusiness Club (SAC), is to be established
in selected schools from 12 states across the six geo-political zones. Each
club will comprise 120 students.
The
pilot states are Plateau, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Ogun, Oyo, Kano, Kaduna, Ebonyi,
Enugu, Gombe, Bauchi and the Federal Capital Terrority (FCT).
The
programme will also focus on food/vegetable production, horticulture,
aquaculture, poultry, apiary, livestock production, small scale irrigation,
nutrition, processing and packaging, and entrepreneurial skills for members of
agribusiness clubs.
The
NSAP is geared toward building technical and entrepreneurship skills in the
students to run agriculture as a business, equip school leavers with practical
life skills to create jobs for themselves to enable the youths develop a
positive attitude towards agriculture.
President
Jonathan, while celebrating the fact that Nigeria’s food import bill has
reduced from $11 billion to $4.3 billion, assured that his administration
places high premium on the young people, hence the programme which will catch
them young.
