THE Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr Sonny Echono, has given an two weeks ultimatum to participating state in the first phase of the Youth Empowerment in Agrciutlure Programme (YEAP) to submit their final list of beneficiaries at a stakeholders meeting recently in Abuja.
Echono, who said the ministry in collaboration with the states is currently in the process of selecting participants for the first phase, explains that the participation call was advertised in February this year and that due diligence on selection of participants had been ongoing. He revealed that the process is now at a point where the participating states from each geo political zone plus the FCT are to undertake the final process of selection, adding that the Federal Government is giving a deadline of two weeks to all participating state Governments, working with the state directors to ensure that the selection process is completed.
The Federal Ministry PS said that the state are to ensure that the short-listed are origin of their state and considered fit and suitable to participate, buttressing that the state Governments along with the Ministry’s state directors are to validate the applications received in respect to their states.
“We are asking them to make the final shortlist of the beneficiaries of both categories of Nagropreneurs, those who are to go into business across all value chains as well as those who will work in agriculture enterprises, as we have identified 24 institutions with mandate for all these value chains and the training centres to train youth either to be nagroprenuers or work in the sector,” Echono said.
In his further explanation, Echono said that the participating states under the first phase are AkwaIbom, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Benue, Enugu, Gombe, Imo, Kaduna, Katsina, Lagos, Niger, Ogun and FCT with a total number of application received been 34,000 but only 30,000 would be taken under the first phase with each state having 250 nagroprenuers.
He also express the FG intentions as participants would be trained in the rice, aqua culture, poultry, maize, tomato, wheat, horticulture, apiculture and sorghum value chains, while others include welding and fabrication, repair and maintenance, soyabeans, cassava, groundnut, oil palm, snailry, grass cutter and cocoa value chain.