About 20,000 youths across the 16 Local Government Areas in Ekiti State are to benefit from the Youth Commercial Agriculture Development (Y-CAD) programme of the State Government.
The Commissioner for Information and Civic Orientation, Mr. Funminiyi Afuye stated this at the weekend while briefing reporters on the outcome of the State Executive Council meeting.
The programme according to the government spokesman is to encourage youths into sustainable commercial agriculture and to directly generate employment opportunity to young entrepreneurs.
The Executive Council also approved the clearing of 700 Hectares of land to the tune of N136,500,000 to facilitate cultivation of land by tractors in the state.
Also speaking on Y-CAD, the Commissioner for Agriculture, Mr. Babajide Arowosafe noted that the programme will further keep the various farm settlements across the state functional round the year as the Y-CAD programme will take place on the farm settlements.
The Commissioner urged youths to utilize the privilege, saying the pilot stage of the programme will see the government focusing on areas with concentration of different farm produce in different communities.
He noted that foreign expert will be on ground to provide technical and capacity building support towards the programme, saying
production, processing and marketing of farm produce will be the focus of the programme.
Last modified: April 21, 2012