AfDB to invest $300m in agric-business led employment initiative

The African Development Bank (AfDB) in its continued efforts at providing fund for youths involved in agriculture would be investing about $300 million as part of innovative funding mechanism for youths in agric-led employment initiative.

The funding as revealed by the Minister of State for Agriculture, Heineken Lokpobori would help develop the country and encourage young graduates to embrace agriculture and approach it as businesses.

Speaking at a workshop organised by  AfDB in collaboration with IITA, Lokpobori said that the youth programme would be implemented in the 36 states of the federation adding that the ministry would develop criteria on how it would be run.

“Part of what we are saying is to provide access to funding to youth and that is why we welcomed the proposal from the ADB to provide an investment of about 300 million dollars.

“ Since we came on board this is the first project we are about to look at, but some of these things cannot be funded from the budget and that is why we welcomed initiatives like this one

“Besides this one, I also spoke about the 2.5 billion dollars in collaboration with the Islamic bank investment that they are proposing with us

“ When that comes, chunk of this money will also be channeled to youth, women and then also other interested people,’’ he said

Lokpobori explained that because of the policies implemented on cassava plantation in country Nigeria now ranked the highest producer of cassava in the world.

He noted that the federal government was in the process of procuring about 18 to 20 cassava processing plant mills from China so as to further boost the production in the country.

“We are promoting more people to go into cassava production in the country and I believe all these government initiatives will continue to encourage the youth in Agribusiness,’’ he said.

Also, Chiji Ojukwu, Director, Agriculture and Agro Industry Department, AfDB, said the goal of the programme is to contribute to job creation, food security and nutrition and improve youth livelihood.

Ojukwu said the programme would be strictly for young graduates in the country as there are lots of unemployed graduates doing nothing.

According the Director, when these graduates are trained and they set up businesses, they will also bring in others that they can train as part of the process. He added that going by the trend of ICT in the world today, ICT would be given keen consideration in the implementation of the programme.