Last week, the Governor of Lagos State,
Mr. Babatunde Fashola, presided over the
graduation of Course Two, Three, and Four
trainees of the state's AGRIC Youth
Empowerment Scheme ( AGRIC-YES) at the
Training Institute in Epe, about 50 kilometres
away from metropolitan Lagos.
The graduation ceremony had a total of 286
agricultural trainees who are mostly university
and polytechnic graduates that have gone
through a 14-month intensive practical
agricultural training on the farm and specialised in
various agricultural activities like piggery, fish
farming, bee Keeping and poultry among others.
The event also witnessed official handover of 32
tonnes capacity per day Cassava Flour Mill , 50,
000 capacity automated five-unit broiler houses,
200 units of two bedroom apartment as farm
settlement for the young farmers; Ram Ranch,
Feed Mill of 64 tonnes capacity per day and 234
kilometres road network within the institute.
Speaking after going round the facilities, the
governor described the training programme as a
very simple idea conceived in 2009. He expressed
his joy that it has been rigorously developed and
dutifully implemented, adding: "When we
graduated the first set of trainees in 2010 at this
same spot, it was our first tentative step towards
how to pursue a policy that, we were clear in our
minds, was a way forward for food security in
our state. It is a huge and quantum leap from an
idea that has become a reality. "
He stressed that the achievements recorded by
the AGRIC-YES programme in such a short time
showed that what is needed to boost food
production in the country is a clear idea, a clear
plan and unflinching commitment to implement
those plans.
According to him: "We know it was a policy to
take young people, young graduates away from
the allure and the clamour and desperation of
seeking and looking for white-collar jobs that do
not exist and to bring them back to the
foundations of the earth, to bring them back to
the land."
The governor pointed out that without
production of food, the factories and other
industrial production would collapse. In his
words, "If we do not produce food, the factories
will shutdown, if we do not produce food and go
back to the land, there will be no rubber to make
tyres to even drive those luxury cars. That was
the simple idea behind the AGRC-YES, to go back
to the land, to create dignity and honour with the
land so that young people will have a new focus
and a new beginning".