The First Lady of Nigeria, Senator Oluremi Tinubu has called for enhanced engagement of youth in agriculture so that they can be part of the food security drive in the country.
She spoke at the meeting held with State First Ladies who also double as state Coordinators of the Renewed Hope Initiative (RHI).
During the meeting, the First Lady noted that the youth should be made to channel their energies to more positive causes and agriculture is a veritable one.
“If our young ones are into farming, it is a positive thing, they will also contribute to feeding the nation and food security,” she said.
Senator Oluremi Tinubu also underscored the importance of women growing crops in their backyard at home, saying beyond fostering healthy feeding for themselves and their families, it guarantees food availability.
According to her, since she herself went into home farming, the benefits have been enormous, especially the organic foods she harvests from her farm.
She encouraged Wives of State Governors to pass the message across to their citizens to imbibe home-grown foods.
The First Lady also disclosed that the RHI has gone into partnership with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture to boost home farming.
She noted that the RHI #Every Home a Garden competition was coming to a climax as three entries have been shortlisted from various States.
According to her the winner of the competition will be unveiled in December this year.
Senator Oluremi Tinubu said that that the RHI has taken a responsibility of supporting the mandate of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu under the Renewed Hope Agenda to reduce food insecurity in the nation by supporting women to farm.
“We have the unveiling of #every home a garden competition very soon, December, we are going to announce the winner. We have shortlisted three.
“If you look at the #every home-made garden, it will amaze you how many people are being inspired to have their own garden.
“On the garden issue, every garden is a winner. Like I was saying in there, the American orientation. You know, when you push people, just like when I was teaching, that was how I moved my students. When we started Spelling Bee in Lagos, just like the One Day governor, we push them, they all excelled. They all did. Even we have first class degree holders and they are all from public schools, not private schools,” the First Lady said.
She also encouraged well to do Nigerians to help the not so privileged ones around them by adopting at least one person to carter for.
“We have to take it up, like the food bank we are doing, we have two companies, BUA is one of them, the other one, wants to stay anonymous, these were the people we started with, they gave us a truckload of food, the Wife of the Vice President, Hajia Nana Shettima is handling that.
“We are going from state to state and we have covered seven states, BUA is joining to be able to cover the 36-states of the federation even if it is one truck per state, less than two years, we should be able to finish,” Senator Tinubu said.
She explained that the RHI initiated scholarship and bursary awards to indigent Nigerian students from across the states of the federation, while also championing the Infrastructure Renewal Project, Early Childhood Development Programme, Women and Young Farmers Support Programme, Distribution of Fertilisers, Young Farmers Club among others.
The meeting was an opportunity for the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security to unveil its collaboration with the Renewed Hope Initiative, RHI.
The Minister of State in the Ministry, Aliyu Abdullahi Sabi said that the Ministry is working with the RHI, to sponsor women and youth farmers in order to produce enough food for families to tackle food insecurity in the nation.
He disclosed that the ministry in partnership with the RHI under its Women Agricultural Support Programme, WASP would be supporting each state with a sum of N68 million to carry out four different agricultural projects.
According to the Minister, a ratio of 60 per cent women and 40 per cent young men farmers would be entitled to get the fund support for farming.
“We are partnering with the First Lady’s pet project the RHI under the Agriculture Support Programme, basically, what we are trying to achieve is having seen the beauty of the design of her project, we decide to leverage on the platform under which it is operating to reach out to all the states through the governors wives of the states.
“Basically, we are looking at four projects, firstly, Training and empowerment of women farmers, processing for food security, we are also looking at young farmers to support them through their agricultural journey, then #EveryHomeAGarden.
“When every home plant gardens, whatever it produces will contribute to food security no matter the percentage, what is important is that families have supply and that is going to reduce the pressure that goes into the ones that goes into the market.
“We have a budget line, based on what we have come out with; having done the processes, about N68 million will be going to each state for the component on each of the four areas of agriculture that we are looking at,” the Minister said.
He further said that the plans to disburse the funds are at the final stage adding that it was part of the reason he attended the meeting of the first lady to brief the wives of governors and to inform them that the ministry would be channeling the funds through their offices.
“The fourth one is Young Farmers Club, it has been there but we want to reinvigorate it.
“We are 95 per cent ready, as soon as I leave here, we are going to designate our state coordinators and we will be ready to disburse the money to the states.
“We don’t see this as a one-off thing, we are seeing it as an expansion for sustainable food security, we are mainstreaming it into our operations,” said the Minister.
The meeting held in the Conference Room of the Office of the First Lady, State House Abuja also witnessed the introduction of the First Lady-designate of Akwa Ibom State, Mrs Helen Eno-Obareki, daughter of the late Wife of the State Governor, Pastor Patience Eno who passed away in September.
The First Lady informed those present that this was the desire of the State Governor.
The gathering observed a minute silence in honor of the memory of Late Pastor Patience Eno and Chief of Army Staff, Lt General Taoreed Lagbaja.
