NIGERIA: Abia Liberation Farm to employ 859 youths

The Abia State Liberation Farm will engage 850 youths across the 17 local government areas of the state, Chief Ike Onyenweaku, the state Commissioner for Agriculture, has said.

Onyenweaku made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Umuahia, recently.

He said 50 youths would be employed by the farm in each of the 17  local government areas of the state.

The commissioner said that the pilot phase of the farm, which would be inaugurated in March, had been sited in Okikpe, in Ukwa West Local Government.

He said the farm would be used for job creation and to ensure food security in the state.

“Government has already appointed Chief Bartho Onyema as the project manager and the aim is to have a separate structure that will run the farm as an enterprise,” he said.

The commissioner said that each local government would cultivate such crops that they had comparative advantage over others.

“That is why we have carefully chosen plantain cultivation in the pilot phase and forms are being completed by the youth in the area for the take-off,” he said.

Onyenweaku said that each of the farm produce would get value addition, adding that “we have concluded plans to site a factory that will use plantain as its major raw material.”