The National Agricultural Land Development Authority, (NALDA), has trained over 200 youth and women in the Federal Capital Territory, (FCT) on vegetable farming at their backyard under the ‘Grow Your Vegetable’ programme to promote agribusiness.
Speaking during the training in Abuja recently, NALDA Executive Secretary and Chief Executive Officer, Prince Paul Ikonne, explained reasons behind the training programme, which he said no space should be a waste or unused as far as growing food to fight hunger is concerned, hence the training to utilising available spaces in the environment for vegetable cultivation.
He said: “The FCT beneficiaries are 200, we have provided them with hybrid seeds like pepper, tomato, onion and pumpkin, also fertilizer, to encourage them to start growing their own food.
“Going forward, those that were not able to be trained, they should take the advantage of this information to begin to grow their vegetables at home because it is doable and they have all it takes to do it and I believe they can do it.“We are starting off from here in Abuja, the next stop will be in Lagos, then Port Harcourt so that we can sensitise them.
“The essence of this programme is to inform us of what we used to know while growing up that our parents used to use every available space at the back of the house or in front of the house to plant vegetables, but urbanization is trying to take that away, thereby making live in the urban city more expensive than the ones in the rural areas.
