Rivers 2020 Budget’ll Boost Agriculture, Create Jobs – Lawmaker

The Rivers State House of Assembly says the 2020 Appropriation Bill if passed into law for the State will help create more job opportunities in the area of agriculture.
Leader of the 32-member State Legislature and lawmaker representing Obio/Akpor Constituency, Martins Amaewhule stated this in Port Harcourt, saying the N40billion budgeted for Agriculture will revive the State School to Land Programme.
“Going to the sectoral breakdown, I just mentioned what we have in agriculture. One key element of this budget is that there is going to be the revival of the School-to-Land programme.
“Let me say that the School-to-Land programme is expected to engage over ten thousand of our youths in commercial agriculture. We have witnessed this in the past where so much was done to revive Agriculture.
“This is one key element of this budget and that is why this whopping sum of over N40billion was devoted to agriculture. Mr. Speaker this is very unique”, he said, noting that young men and women will be engaged in agriculture.
“In line with the budget objectives and thrust, you can find that for agriculture, beyond the School-to-land programme we will see a lot of our young ones being engaged in agriculture as part of this budget in a way and manner commercial agriculture will among our youths and women be revived.”
He also said the state Cassava Processing Plant in Oyigbo will be revived to boost the school-to-land programme and give more opportunities for people to engage themselves in meaningful ventures.
“The Cassava Processing Plant at Afam in Oyigbo will also be revived and of course across the state we have poultry, piggeries and fisheries to make sure that our people become part of the agriculture process,” the House Leader stated.