YAGEPreneurs charged to focus on agribusiness for profitability

Beneficiaries of the 2022 cycle of the Delta State Youth Agricultural Entrepreneurship Programme (YAGEP) have been charged to focus on agribusiness, shine and excel with it as it has the potential of making them three times richer than salary earners.

This charge was given to the 254 youth agricultural farmers popularly known as YAGEPreneurs, who were enrolled into fish, crop and poultry farming under the 2022 YAGEP cycle.

They were given the charge during the one-day Orientation and Farm Enterprise Training (OFET) organised for them by the state’s job and wealth creation bureau, in Asaba on Thursday.

Said Sam Ndikanwu, Programme Superviser, YAGEP, said, “All lives are green. Every other sector of the economy depends on farmers for survival.

Ndikanwu, a civil servants cum crop farmer, speaking from experience said: “Every salary earner is a poor man! If you check the salary of a civil servant, you will see that if has worked for 20 years, the magic in the income of a consistent farmer will reveal the weakpoint of the salary earner.

When a civil servant retires, check his life after retirement but a farmer who remains in farming would not beg for food. The civil servant retires and begins to beg for food and falling sick and dies because his income is not sustenable.” Thus, Ndikanwu, one of YAGEP resource persons, urged the YAGEPreneurs to see farming as a sustenable business.

Emmanuella Clinton, chief executive officer (CEO), Nuella Clinton Farms, Ogwashi-Uku, Delta State, posited that farmers are the best as she narrated her experience as an employee and now an entrepreneur (poultry farm owner).

Clinton, a resourse person who delivered lecture on “How to manage farm enterprises, making it a profitable business and knowing critical dos and don’ts of business, told the YAGEPreneurs, “You are the best and I am saying this based on my knowledge as a poultry farmer.

If you understand the rudiment in the business – how to critically manage your farm”, you will be successful, she encouraged them

Chinweike Nwankwo, CEO, Chinwinxfarms, an agrobusiness consultant told them to embrace excellence to become better.

If you are not able to market your products on social media, just be excellent and people who see your excellent products would become your clients, he admonished.

Excellence, consistency and being deliberate has taken me so far in fishing industry and farmers goal is to satisfy consumers and contribute to food security in the society, he said.

The current cycle of YAGEP is the last to be trained by the Ifeanyi Okowa-led administration which had been creating new youth agricultural entrepreneurs to run farm entreprises as a business.

Eric Eboh, the chief job and wealth creation officer of the state boasts that through the job and wealth creation programme initiated by Okowa when he assumed office in year 2023, the administration has made agricultural entrepreneurs better than it met them – coaching them on farm business planning, record-keeping, business name registration, profit-making attitudes and skills, agricultural insurance.

Addressing the beneficiaries, Eboh disclosed that a total of 9,154 Deltans had benefitted from the job creation programmes through the bureau with YAGEP engaging 1,776 youths.

He said 5,051 youths benefitted from the Skills Training Entrepreneurship Programme (STEP), adding that the Graduate Employment Enhancement Programme (GEEP) engaged 170 youths, while the Production and Processing Support Programme (PPSP) supported 2,157 already existing farmers.

While commending the consistency and transparency of the programme as reflected in the Job Creation Bureau Portal deltastatejobcreation.net, he maintained that the job and wealth creation programme of the state government was a role model in the country.

He congratulated them for being part of Governor Ifeanyi Okowa’s vision for a more prosperous Delta State and charged them to work hard to ensure their participation in the programme improved their lives.