Ogun Enjoins Unemployed Graduates To Take Interest In Agriculture

        Ogun State Governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun has called on young graduates who are not gainfully employed to take advantage of his Government’s agricultural empowerment opportunity.

       Governor Amosun stated this while addressing 40 graduate participants of the State agricultural empowerment programme and the people of Owowo Community during the commissioning of Owowo Model Farm Estate in Ewekoro Local Governments Area of the State.

       Amosun said as part of efforts at encouraging graduates to develop keen interest in farming and see it as profitable enterprise to white collar jobs, the State Government has built 40 bungalows of two bedroom flats each as farm residence for 40 participants while sizeable plots of land has also been provided for their farming.

       The Governor said his Government has reduced the initial 12.5 percent interest rate to 9.5 percent on loan facility granted the graduate farmers to boost their farming capacity and increase profit.

       He therefore called on the unemployed graduates across the State who are not lazy to drop the idea of white collar jobs that are not readily available and embrace the value chain in agriculture that would not only end unemployment but also revolutionalize the State into an industrial hub.

       Governor Amosun said the South West as well as other regions in Nigeria developed infrastructurally through the earnings from agriculture, pointing out that the emergence of oil had robbed the nation the opportunity to invest in the sector and affected graduates orientation in discovering their hidden entrepreneurial talents.

        ‘‘The State has resolved to use agriculture as one of the bedrock to drive the State to industrialization,and that this Government will not only improve on the facilities at the farm estate but also support intending graduate farmers to thrive’’,Amosun said.

              Mr. Babatunde Gbenga Meshach, a graduate of Mass Communication, Moshood Abiola Polytechnic said he was a proud participant of the Government initiative and has discovered agriculture as a gainful venture everybody should embrace, while Mr. Idowu Nurain, a graduate of Water and Metrology, University of Agriculture, Abeokuta appreciated Governor Amosun for the initiative, calling on unemployed graduates across the State to embrace the opportunity offered in agriculture in order to become employer of labour.

       Meanwhile, the Governor has also commissioned the Poultry Multiplication Project at Emuren, in Ijebu-Ode Local Government Area of the State,aimed at hatching 30,000 day old chicks per week to boost poultry farming in the State.

       Governor Amosun said the State is determined to become a leading hub in the production of poultry products, saying that Government is poised at encouraging private investors that are ready to tap from the advantage offered by his government in the Agricultural sector