AS part of effort to boost a gricultural productivity in Nigeria as well as improving the skills of the farmers in South-West Nigeria, the Nigeria Agricultural Quarantine Service (NAQS), in collaboration with Arajek Multi Services Ltd, has put together a training on improved agricultural farming on maize, plantain and oil palm, among others, for farmers in Oyo State.
A total of 100 farmers each were selected from each state for the training workshop.
The training workshop, which began Monday at the Federal College Of Animal Health and Production Technology (FCAH&PT), Moor Plantation, Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, is expected to come to a close today.
In his welcome address, chairman, Arajek Multi Services Ltd, Mr Rahman Idris, stressed the importance of agriculture in addressing food security, employment, contribution to gross domestic product and wealth creation.
He observed that almost 65 to 75 percent of Nigerians are engaged in agricultural activities.
Idris said: “There is no way one would not eat in a day unless he or she is fasting, thus there is the need to encourage agriculture in Nigeria. We have good land from North to the South and from West to the East.”
He advised the participants to cooperate with the resource persons in order to achieve the set objectives of the workshop.
He later thanked the management and staff members of NAQS, for the technical support, among others.
While addressing participants, the training coordinator, Professor Adeboye Omole, gave overview of the training, while encouraging participants to be punctual, attentive and ask questions on areas that are not clear to them.
He also expressed gratitude to the Federal Government through NAQS for the timely intervention through the training of youths and women in agricultural activities. He also thanked the chairman of Arajek Multi Services Limited and the facilitator of the project, Honourable Kolapo Osunsanya, for the opportunity.
The Comptroller General of NAQS, Dr Vincent Isegbe, who was represented by Mrs Bello Hadijat Jumoke, while welcoming the participants to the training workshop, urged them to make use of the knowledge acquired during the training so as not to make the time spent attending the programme be a wasted one.
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