Osun Lawmaker Berates Decreasing Involvement of Young Workforce in Agriculture

A lawmaker in Osun House of Assembly has frowned at the decreasing involvement of the young workforce in agriculture as he made clarion call on Osun state  government to provide incentives that will attract youth to work in the sector.

Speaking on "platform", an Osun State Broadcasting Corporation (OSBC) weekly radio program presented by Muyideen Adeleke on Thursday 15th October, 2020, the lawmaker and former commissioner for Agriculture and Food Security, Hon. Wale Adedoyin, who represents Ilesa West State Constituency at Osun Assembly, asked the government to improve on access to capital and land. "The Ministry of Agriculture should give priority to young farmers through an incentive policy to retain them to stay in the sector. One of the militating factor is scarcity of agricultural land."

Regretting the "get-rich-quick" attitude of our nowadays youth, Hon. Adedoyin said that the declining interest of young workforce to work in the agricultural sector is not without consequences particularly in fulfilling the increasing demand for food. The interest of young people to become the next generation farmers must be fostered.

He also appreciated the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) recent support policies, loan opportunities and fund interventions to farmers of the state as he called on the government to look at what would bring comparative advantage in terms of  food production and agricultural activity.

"Whoever wants to profit from the  government intervention should access information from the Ministry or their outlets like OSADEP which are located in all the 9 federal constituencies of the state." He said.

On the challenges of the increase on the price rice in Nigeria market, the lawmaker said. "As part of the intervention of the Federal Government, support were given to private sectors to run rice mill and not until we were to have enough of these processing mills, we will still be limited with choice." 

(Radio program followed and reported by Oladimeji Lasore +2347035105413)