NAPRI Trains 600 Youths, Women On Livestock

Inside the poultry at Songhai Rivers Initiative Farm. Photo: RSSDA

The National Animal
Production Research Institute (NAPRI) at Shika in Zaria, Kaduna State has commenced the training of 600 youths and some women in poultry production and cattle rearing.
The Tide reports that the training was organised by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) assisted Youths and Women in Agric Business Investment.
The training would be supervised by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in collaboration with NAPRI.
Speaking at the training’s flagging-off recently in Zaria, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, expressed the ministry’s determination to encourage youths to choose farming as their profession.
Adesina, represented by Alhaji Shehu Gusau, the ministry’s Director of Monitoring and Evaluation, described the training as “the product of strategic planning and hardwork”.
He said it was the outcome of strategic planning and hardwork from all the relevant agencies and parastatals.
“It is the beginning of a new era in the empowerment of youths and women in agricultural business with a view to making them self-reliant,” the minister said.
The Vice-Chancellor, Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, Prof. Abdullahi Mustapha, urged the participants to avail themselves of the opportunity offered by the training to become self-employed and employers of labour.
In a message he delivered at the occasion, Mustapha, who was represented by Prof. Joshua Adebayo, the Dean of ABU’s Post-Graduate School, described NAPRI as “the centre of excellence in animal production”.
He said the participants should consider themselves very lucky to be part of those to be trained in the institute.
The Executive Director of NAPRI, Prof. Jerome Gefu, said the institute was set to help in driving the transformation agenda of President Goodluck Jonathan in agriculture.
He said the participants would be shown, during the course of the training, various techniques of producing livestock.