By Monsur Olowoopejo

Lagos State Government disclosed that it has trained 180 students from the state’s public schools in agricultural entrepreneurship.

Commissioner for Agriculture and Cooperatives, Prince Gbolahan Lawal, disclosed this at the end of two weeks agricultural training programme for students tagged: Agricultural Youth Empowerment Scheme, AGRIC-YES, summer school, held at the State Agricultural Training Institute, Araga, Epe axis of the state.

Gbolahan said that the 180 students have been empowered in aquaculture, poultry, vegetable farming and tree planting.

Explaining further, Lawal said “this is the third series in the summer training programme. And since the commencement of the programme three years ago, we have been training 60 students yearly with 10 students each drawn from the six Education Districts of the state.”

He  urged the youths to go back to their schools and set up farms, saying that 36 schools in the state already had farms set up by students who had undergone the empowerment training.

The students were taken round several farms and given practical training on how to set up fish ponds, among others.

He said there was the need to boost food production in the state and that the frozen chicken imported and sold in the market were not for human consumption as they were hazardous.

Commissioner for Education, Mrs. Olayinka Oladunjoye said the programme was designed to promote and arouse the interest of students in Agricultural Science and embrace agriculture as a laudable profession from the early stage of their development.

Oladunjoye added that the programme was also designed to improve teachers’ technical skills necessary for career and personal success, professional development opportunities through practical agricultural literacy, awareness and orientation that the education system needed to experience a turn around.

The commissioner who was represented by a director in the ministry, Mrs. Tini Idris stated that the Ministries of Agriculture and Education had completed plans to reactivate the ‘Young Farmer’s Club’ in all public schools in the state, while soliciting for more financial support from the Agriculture Ministry for the participants, especially those who might like to take Agriculture as a career in the future.

“I charge you to put into practice whatever you must have learnt or gained in this programme and also cascade it to other students in your various schools,” she told the participants.