ILRI, Hitech Farms collaborate to prepare civil servants for retirement through agriculture

AS part of efforts geared towards preparing civil servants for life after retirement, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), in partnership with Hitech Farms and Store Limited, recently organised a pre-retirement training for some selected members of the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) in Oyo State.

Addressing participants during the training held at the International Institute of Trpical Agriculture (IITA), recently, representative of Hitech Farms and Stores, Mr Kolawole Oyerinde, noted that the idea behind the programme was informed by the very urgent need to create a rescue situation for government workers who are retiring or are preparing to retire.

He posited that:”A careful observation of life after retirement patterns of civil service retirees revealed that a large number of the workers that retire from the civil and public services, have little or no idea of the need to plan for their retirement, talk less of knowing how to do it. This problem affects virtually, all categories of officers, irrespective of rank or garde level.

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“I therefore, consider you, the participants very lucky, being the first batch of trainees to benefit from the training programme just as I must add that your total commitment to the project that will take off after this training is very important. As we all know, nothing works when the commitment and passon required to push it through is lacking.”

In his charge to participants, Country Director, International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Dr Tunde Amole, advised that all NUT serving and intending retirees members should go into agriculture especially livestock production for economic sustainability, availability of food production and social interaction to give the participants will enjoy to enlongage their lives.

He encouraged the NUT cooperative members to take advantage of the training and form a technical committee for an almost emidaiately take off of the cooperative agricbusiness project.

Some members of the NUT cooperative societies who spoke with the Nigerian Tribune, expressed gratitude to the organisers of the training, with a promise that they will key into the initiative and make the best use of it.