Against all odds, in just two years, the 19th Director-General of the National Youth Services Corps (NYSC) Brigadier General Shuaib Ibrahim, has turned the scheme into a money spinning venture. JOHN OBA reports.
Youth in agriculture
The government’s diversification plan brought out the need for youth to engage in agriculture and the need to modify agricultural practices as business and not welfare project.
The call for youth engagement in agriculture looked unrealistic with the Nigeria 18th mode of farming that made it irritating to an average youth, more so, graduates who have been sold the idea of white collar jobs after school. Several ideas and incentives have been introduced by various governments to no avail.
Some of the major constraints hindering youth participation in agriculture were identified as inadequate credit facility, lack of agricultural insurance, poor returns on agricultural investment, lack of basic farming knowledge and lack of access to tractors and other farm inputs. The problem of post-harvest losses that has driven most farmers into debt and inconsistent policy thrust of the government.
Experts believe that there are lots of concern about engaging youth in agriculture, in many ways, young people are not very much interested in continuing in agriculture because they don’t see much prospect in the future of agriculture, they don’t see it as an active profession in the long-run, so many of the smallholder farmers are quite aged.
Corps members in Agriculture
It is based on this that the Nigerian government has introduced policies aimed at the diversification of the economy, to cushion the effects of the oil crisis. With agriculture at the forefront of the diversification plan, the Director-General, the director General, National Youth Services Corps (NYSC) Brigadier General Shuaib Ibrahim, after taking over the leadership of the scheme Keyed into the government plan with determination to ensure that Corps members are trained and empowered to take up agriculture.
One of his first decisions after assuming office in 2019 was to resuscitate the scheme’s four farm settlements across the country as part of efforts to key into the federal government diversification programme.
According to the Director, Ventures Management, Prince Muhammed Momoh, the four farms located in FCT, Bauchi, Kebbi and Oyo states are now into full-scale farming activities and have been provided with modern implements and corpers lodges as they are also serving as training grounds for Corps members under the agriculture component of the NYSC skills acquisition and entrepreneurship development programme.
Resuscitation of NYSC water factory
“Under his leadership, there has been the resuscitation of NYSC water factory and bakery at NYSC orientation camp Kubwa. The water factory and bakery that was abandoned for about 3years, was resuscitated by Director-General immediately, he assumed office and these two Ventures are now producing at full capacity. The water and bread produced in these Ventures are being supplied to FCT, Nasarawa, Kogi, Kaduna, Niger etc orientation camps and the general public. These ventures now generate reasonable revenue to the scheme, unlike before that NYSC was not getting any revenue from these Ventures.”
Listing the DG’s efforts towards reviving the scheme’s farms, Prince Momoh said the scheme under his leadership, cultivated the largest hectarage of its farmland, “60 hectares in Saminaka, Kebbi and 52 hectares in FCT during 2019 farming year. Adding that the consistent support in terms of funding and staffing, have increased the hectarage under cultivation from 60 hectare to 160 hectare during 2020 farming season.
“The scheme purchased modern farm equipment for the four NYSC functional farms namely NYSC farm Kwali, FCT, Samimaka, Kebbi state, Dungulbi, Bauchi state and Iseyin Oyo state. Each of these farms now have tractor and other basic farm equipment.
“The scheme constructed additional two thousand bird capacity poultry pen at NYSC farm Kwali, FCT and there is also the ongoing resuscitation of NYSC Rice Mill Ezillo in Ebonyi and NYSC Poultry Farm, Ita Ogbolu, Ondo State.
“We are also resuscitating the moribund NYSC feed mill in Lagos and the feed mill is now ready to start production of animal feeds. We have also reclaimed our farm land at Ezillo which hitherto was collected by Ebonyi state government. Immediately after reclaiming the land, tractor was purchased for farming operations for the NYSC farm Ezillo,” he said.
NYSC National Cultural Troupe
Also speaking the Director, Press and Public Relations, Mrs Adenike Adeyemi, the scheme for the first time has been able to established the NYSC Wood (Film Company) and NYSC National Cultural Troupe and also facilitated collaboration with National Council for Arts and Culture (NCAC) training of corps members and technical support to NYSC Wood and NYSC National Cultural Troupe.
According to her, the scheme has been able to registered the following NYSC Ventures with the Corporate Affairs Commission; NYSC Bakery and Water Factory, Kubwa , Abuja; NYSC Rice Mill in Ezillo, Ebonyi State; NYSC Feedmill , Iyana Ipaja, Lagos; NYSC Garment Factory, Minna Niger State NYSC Garment Factory, Mgbakwu, Anambra; NYSC Entertainment Company (made up of NYSC Wood, NYSC National Band and NYSC National Cultural Troupe).
Partnership drives
Ibrahim did not just revived the NYSC farms and Ventures, he has also taken advantage of several partnership the scheme entered into with States and the private sector to drive the corps members passion in agriculture.
According to Adeyemi, “In order to reposition the NYSC Agricultural programme and expand training opportunities for corps members in agribusiness, the Director General facilitated the and endorsed MoU on partnership with; International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan; National Centre for Agric Mechanization (NCAM), Ilorin; Agricultural and Rural Management Training Institute (ARMTI), Ilorin.
“Under the IITA partnership, a webinar on agribusiness was recently organized. Three thousand corps members participated nationwide.
“In similar vein, a sensitization on agribusiness was organized for about ten thousand corps members in twelve orientation camps during the 2021 Batch ‘A’ orientation course. At the end of the sensitization, two thousand corps members showed interest in attending the four-week agribusiness training that would be conducted by IITA during the service year.
“Facilitated ongoing discussion on partnership with National Cereals Research Institute (NCRI) Badeggi. The MoU is ready for endorsement.
“The NYSC Farms and Ventures are now generating profit thereby enhancing the Internally Generated Revenue of the Scheme paid into the Treasury Single Account due to the repositioning strategies of the Director General and the immeasurable support given to the Farms and Venture,” she said.
He has also met with the state governors and other stakeholders with a view to securing land in all the states for agricultural production, this has yielded fruits with the Governments of Edo, Ekiti and Nasarawa States donated land for the establishment of NYSC Garment Factories for South South, South West and 16 hectares for crops production to expand the revenue generation base of the Scheme as well as create more avenues for the training of corps members.
“Through our public-private partnership drive, Access Bank has undertaken and completed the building and furnishing of a 1000-capacity mega skills training centre for the north east zone of Nigeria located in Gombe.
“In this same vein. The American multi-national, General Electric in conjunction with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) under the Cognitive Advisory Partnership has trained 40 NYSC staff who are now ILO certified Business Entrepreneurship Trainers.
The Scheme under Ibrahim’s leadership took advantage of it partnership with the Nigerian Stored Products Research Institute (NSPRI) to train 40 corps members in Ibadan on how to add value to agricultural commodities in order to reduce post-harvest losses.
The three-day capacity building programe for corps members focused on appropriate methods of grains storage, opportunities for youths in post- value chain as well as storage of fresh roots and tubers crops among others.
Speaking during the programme, NSPRI Executive Director, Dr Patricia Pessu, said that the initiative was designed to expose the corps members to greater opportunities in agriculture as well as challenge and motivate them.
Despite COVID-19
Also, in 2020, despite the COVID 19 lock down, the scheme collaborated with the Agriculture and Rural Management Training Institute to train corps members to boost agriculture and food security.
