Utilize youths to boost agric, tackle unemployment, lawmaker tells FG

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NIGERIA: A MEMBER of the House of Representatives has pleaded with the Federal Government to look into how to utilize the abundant able bodied youths in the country to boost agricultural production and tackle unemployment.

Honorable Oladipupo Adebutu, who represents Remo Federal Constituency (Ogun State) in the House of Representatives, lamented the rising level of youth unemployment and called for a strategic framework in the agriculture sector to tackle the problem.

“Nigeria is blessed with swathes of arable land and human resources to pursue sustained local food production as a way of engaging the youth,” Adebutu said, adding: “We should utilise our youth demographics to boost agricultural production and reduce unemployment.”

The lawmaker said that, if fully tapped, there are abundant potentials in the agriculture sector as veritable avenue to urgently create jobs directly and indirectly.

Adebutu spoke with reporters against the background of the recent Job Creation Report for the second quarter of 2015 released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

According to the NBS Report, job creation in Nigeria slumped by 70 percent.

The lawmaker noted that while the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development had 13 policy actions which it intended to implement over time, generation of employment has become a critical need for the sector to address.

He stated that the time has come for the Federal Government policies, as a matter of urgency, to be translated into concrete, measurable steps to tackle the worrying high rate of unemployment in the country.

Adebutu also stressed: “It is clear that this is the time to focus on this wholeheartedly, the added compelling reason being the drop in crude oil prices and high unsustainable bills for importation of food.  The importation of rice, for example, consumes over $4 billion a year.”

The legislator said he believes that the time has come for the country to embark on a massive employment generation programme by harnessing the inherent advantages of agriculture and the agro-allied value chain.

“Nigeria must now as a matter of urgency, adopt wholesale, agri-business as a strategy to earn revenue from processed agricultural exports,” he said.  “Agriculture could serve us in several beneficial ways.  Apart from becoming the ‘new oil’ and swelling the nation’s coffers, it would generate employment.”

“The non-oil sector of the economy has the potential to serve as a springboard for industrialisation,” Adebutu emphasised.

He noted that according to the NBS, manufacturing sector has been responsible for about 10 per cent of the country’s total GDP yearly.

In terms of employment generation, this accounts for about 12 per cent of the labour force in the formal sector of the nation’s economy, he maintained, while adding: “In a nutshell, this sector can help create jobs and drastically reduce youth unemployment.”

He also called for policies to make agricultural studies compulsory in both public and private schools up to Senior Secondary School level, as a way of getting the youth to buy into the benefits of agribusiness from an early age.

Adebutu maintained: “Nigeria has to look inwards to tap into her array of agricultural products; embrace a holistic and sincere approach towards achieving national food security, boost the country revenue from processed agricultural exports and simultaneously shrink unemployment.”

The lawmaker added that he was aware that case studies in developed countries had shown that legislative action can effect some of the reforms needed in the country’s agricultural sector in order to address the country’s socio-economic deficiencies, which include high rates of unemployment.

Adebutu also stated that the Land Use Act must be amended to cater for small land owners and farmers who, because of lack of documentation, are unable to access bank and government intervention facilities to raise capital and inputs for their farming.

Many economic lands are not properly utilised because of the documentary restriction imposed by the Land Use Act, he also said.

He further stated that a holistic reform of the land tenure system would unleash the great potential of the agri-business and reduce the massive unemployment plaguing the nation with its attendant security implications.