THIRTY-TWO youths have been trained in organic agriculture by the Organic Agriculture Project in Tertiary Institutions in Nigeria (OAPTIN) under its Work, Earn and Learn Programme (WELP) scheme.
Following the 10th and 11th training cycles of the programme, the graduating students were presented with certificates of completion.
OAPTIN was conceived in 2009 as a collaborative project between the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB), and the Conventry University, United Kingdom for developing entrepreneurship in organic agriculture among graduates in Nigeria.
Speaking at the certificate award ceremony, FUNAAB Vice-Chancellor, Professor BabatundeKehinde, charged the graduands to go beyond the certificate, adding that the university management would support them with finance and facilities to ensure they are well established to attract companies and other well-meaning Nigerians.
He congratulated the trainees for the successful completion of the programme which, according to him, is the future of agriculture in Nigeria while commending the facilitators and team led by the coordinator of WELP, Prof. Isaac Aiyelaagbe, for their tireless efforts in making sure that the training year was successful.
Earlier in his opening remarks, Prof Aiyelaagbe disclosed that the programme has so far trained 230 youths and four staff members of the university drawn from different departments, adding that WELP has also trained up to 200 students who took some modules of organic agriculture in their Farm Practical Year (FPY).
He noted that some of the WELP Alumni have gone on to establish their small-scale organic enterprises using the knowledge and skills gathered, while others work for big organic farms.
The coordinator, who will be stepping down after fifteen years, expressed his gratitude to WELP for the opportunity granted him to serve the university community, acknowledging that it was the cooperation of the members that made his pioneering administration successful.
The keynote speaker at the event, Mr. Yomi Onabolu of Amazon Farms, noted that WELP is doing a fantastic job in ensuring that the future of agriculture in Nigeria is shaped in the right direction.
He furhter stated that people were beginning to appreciate organic products, noting that a lot of producers are coming into Nigeria, which has increased the level of its demand even beyond the shores of this country.
He further explained that 70 percent of what was needed to understand organic farming is science-based, 20 percent of the experience, and 10 percent of the initiative would go into packaging and branding the farm produce.
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