FECA Trains, Empower 7500 Entrepreneurs in Agriculture

By Oluniyi Akintunde, Akure

The Federal College of Agriculture, Akure (FECA) said that it has trained and empowered 7,500 categories of entrepreneurs on profitable agribusiness from September 2008 till date.

Dr Samson Odedina, the Provost of FECA stated this at the weekend at the bi-monthly business forum organised by the institution in collaboration with Harvest Plus Nigeria.

Odedina explained that the college parades wealth of training resources needed for practical in agriculture, saying that the facilities and manpower were ranked among the best in Africa.

He added that the college played a leading and pioneering role in actualisation of new value chain curriculum in schools of agriculture in Nigeria.

Odedina said: “Based on what we do in FECA, we got a support from government of Australia and some institutions and we came out with introduction of value chain into curriculum of schools of agriculture in Nigeria.

“And just last week, we got an approval from Federal Government through National Board for Technical Education that the curriculum should be used in all schools teaching agriculture.

“This value chain curriculum is the first of its kind in Nigeria. None had existed prior to this time.

“This is a result of value chain activities of production processing, value addition marketing and consumption at the college.

“Based on experience, the college’s case study was adopted for the development of value chain curriculum.

“The joy of it is that FECA is playing a leading role and also practicalising it for everyone to see.”

He added that everything FECA had was a case study that value chain would work.

According to him, the new curriculum will enable students teach farmers on maximising profit at every stage of production.

Odedina applauded Harvest Plus Nigeria for being a most rewarding and sustainable partner in track record of producing quality, self-employed graduates for the agricultural sector.

“Our landmark success in the project when Harvest Plus built, equipped and donated agroshop, bio-fortification restaurant and cassava processing and value addition centre.

“The Harvest Plus Nigeria also sponsored the establishment and maintenance of 100 hectares of Vitamin A cassava varieties for farmers and entrepreneurs in Ondo State”, he stated.

Commending the college, Mrs Ronke Gabriel, the Director of Food and Nutrition, Federal Ministry of Budget and National Planning, said that she was happy of college’s efforts to ensure food security.

Gabriel tasked health and agricultural sectors to focus on nutrition and combat malnutrition in the country.