Nigerian Stored Products Research Institute (NSPRI), Ilorin, Kwara State has trained selected 50 serving corps members in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) on value addition and post-harvest management of agricultural crops.
Speaking at the opening of the eighth edition of one-week capacity-building workshop for the corps members in Ilorin on Wednesday, the executive director of the institute, Dr Patricia Pessu, said that youth engagement in agribusiness, as being practised in some developing countries, is a crucial asset to achieving sustainable food security.
The NSPRI boss, who said that agriculture is no longer an act, but rather a business enterprise, added that value addition to agricultural products is a viable and trendy aspect of agribusiness that creates job opportunities, increases farmers’ income, ensures abundance of food and loss reduction.
She also said that the programme aimed to encourage self-reliance, and self-employment and ensure productivity among Nigerian youths, adding that the training had been held in Delta, Lagos, Kano, Kwara, Rivers, Oyo states and back in Kwara state.
The institute, which promised to support corps members with approved business proposal with start-up seed money, said that it supported three corps members with the sum of N2 million each as startup seed money following the verification of their business proposals after their service year from Kwara and Oyo states’ editions.
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“Like many African countries, youth employment is a critical policy issue that directly affects national food security and in Nigeria today about 40 per cent of youths are unemployed.
“Take as an illustration, in the first quarter of 2021, a report published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on its website noted that Nigeria’s Unemployment Rate has risen from 27.1 per cent in the second quarter of 2020, to 33 per cent.
“Aside from making it the second highest on Global List, the NBS report, going by analysis, shows that ‘more than 60 per cent of Nigeria’s working-age population is younger than 34. The number of people looking for jobs will keep rising as population growth continues to outpace output expansion.
“Nigeria is expected to be the world’s third-most-populous country by 2050, with over 300 million people, according to the United Nations. The present development demands youth engagement in agribusiness as it is been seen practised in some developing countries as a crucial asset to achieving sustainable food security.
“Recognizing this, the Nigerian Stored Products Research Institute (NSPRI) becomes a dependable partner for the youth corps members to boost their skills and improve networks for the next generation of Nigeria’s agricultural entrepreneurs by harnessing the potentials in the postharvest value chain of agriculture.
“NSPRI with over 60 years of postharvest research delivery has developed various technologies and appropriate techniques for handling, processing and storage of different categories of agricultural commodities suitable for Nigerian market and export.
“It is expected that upon completion of your service year, this training would have equipped you not only with the knowledge of exciting opportunities in postharvest handling and value addition to agricultural commodities but more importantly with the requisite skills to transport ideas into sustainable agribusinesses.”
Also speaking, the NYSC state coordinator, Francisca Olaleye, represented by the assistant director of the scheme, Orangun Adegboyega, said that the programme is capable of solving food problems in the country.
The NYSC boss, who appreciated the institute for the training programme, said that the programme is capable of turning the beneficiaries into employers of labour, “as there are no longer white collar jobs.”
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