Job Creation Bureau Organizes Agribusiness Workshop for Brown YAGEP Beneficiaries.
In furtherance of the Delta State Government’s commitment to sustain the agricultural enterprises of YAGEPreneurs, beneficiaries have been charged to register their farms and to keep records of their farm activities.
The Chief Job and Wealth Creation Officer in the Delta State Job and Wealth Creation Bureau, Prof Eric Eboh, gave the charge during a one-day Agribusiness Workshop for Brown YAGEP beneficiaries enrolled in the 2020/2021 Cycle of the Youth Agricultural and Entrepreneurs Programme (YAGEP.)
The 158 participants at the workshop were enrolled and earlier given farm inputs in Crop Production either in cassava, maize, vegetable or plantain farming.
Prof Eboh recalled that the beneficiaries had passed through an Orientation and Farm Enterprise Training (OFET) to enroll them into the programme and to guide them through the stages of the programme.
He reaffirmed that YAGEPreneurs in Crop Production have received farm inputs/support package from the state government as the first batch of Brown YAGEP beneficiaries in the 2020/2021 Cycle, pointing out that those in livestock production such as Fish Production, Piggery and Poultry were yet to be enrolled into the programme.
He listed the three necessities of every enterprise as registering of business name, keeping of farm records and accounts and writing a business plan, describing them as key elements that can trigger a turnaround of any farm business.
“The Agribusiness Workshop is a capacity building activity designed to improve the agribusiness management efficiency of youth agricultural entrepreneurs in the areas of business planning, farm records and accounts, and business name registration,” he stated.
He tasked them to sustain their businesses through the ingredient of integrity, which he said would make their clients, financiers and stakeholders to trust them, maintaining that the state government’s job creation STEP/YAGEP is widely acknowledged for its integrity.
“A total number of 5,074 youths have been trained and established in their choice businesses in the first five years of Governor Okowa’s administration. Out of the 5,074 youths, there is no one without starter pack or whose starter pack items were not complete. This is integrity. In this present cycle which is the 2020/2021 Cycle, 1,050 youths are programmed to be enrolled into YAGEP. This brings the number, after the completion of this cycle, to over 6,000 youths,” he remarked.
On his part, the Executive Assistant to the Governor on Youth Monitoring, Mr. Edward Mekwunye, represented by the Senior Technical Officer, Mr. Jude Chikezie, in the Directorate of Youth Monitoring and Mentoring, enjoined them to apply the lessons and principles learnt from the workshop to sustain their businesses.
Speaking differently, the Senior Special Assistants to the Governor on Job and Wealth Creation, Mr. Gerry Ossai, Barr Tony Omonemu, Prince Charles Abutoh and Mr. Emmanuel Osazuwa admonished the YAGEpreneurs to protect their businesses by upholding the tenets of integrity in their dealings with the public.
While emphasizing that their major objective is to make profit in the long run, they said adequate knowledge of the market and business environment were required to help them excel as entrepreneurs, advising them to take the training seriously.
Beneficiaries who spoke, Nkemdilim Nwali in cassava production (Ika North East) and Stephen Onwudike in Plantain Production (Oshimili North) expressed their gratitude to the State Government for making them entrepreneurs. They pledged to use the knowledge acquired from the workshop to write their business plan, register their businesses and to keep farm records and accounts.
The highpoint of the training/workshop was the technical session coordinated by the resource persons, Miss Emmanuella Clinton and Mr. Fidelis Bienose.
By Gertrude Onyekachukwu-Uteh.