1000 youths, women benefit from lawmaker’s agric programme in Enugu
- 300 bags of fertilizers distributed
NO FEWER THAN 1,000 YOUTHS and women from Enugu State’s three local government areas have benefited from an agricultural empowerment programme of Toby Okechukwu, a member representing the Awgu, Aninri and Oji-River federal constituency at the House of Representatives. The gesture is known as ‘Toby Okechukwu Agricultural Empowerment programme.’
Also, 300 bags of fertilizers were distributed to women farmers selected from the three local government areas, with hands-on training on how to apply fertilizer on crops, with the overall intention to improve yields of food crops and vegetable in the area.
The bags of fertilizer, combined with undisclosed cash, were given out to the women as starter packs to boost agriculture in the federal constituency.
Toby Okechukwu was represented at the event by Godwin Udeuhele, a former commissioner for Information in Enugu. He said that the gesture was not political, but rather aimed at assisting the women from the three council areas to enable them come out with bumper harvests in this year’s farming season.
“(Our empowerment) is not a political event. It is more of humanitarian because we just finished elections, and Hon. Toby was only sworn in last Wednesday. This is time for governance; and this shows that the zeal to assist and improve the wellbeing of his people runs in him,” Udeuhele said.
He assured that the agric empowerment would be a continuous exercise; stressing that that those who were not accommodated in this batch would be included in the next one.
The federal lawmaker’s representative said that the farmers who were given fertilizers had been trained for two months, and equally given seedlings; adding that the fertilizer was for them to apply to the crops they had planted. “According to the training, fertilizers are applied within two months after planting,” he said.
He urged the farmers to carefully follow instructions given to them by the consultant of the programme, in order to make a great change in the output of what they would produce.
The consultant informed that under the Toby Okechukwu Agricultural Empowerment programme, they have trained 150 youths from Awgu, Aninri and Oji-River LGAs in grasscutter breeding and snail farming, and 250 others in fish farming, among many others.
He informed that all those trained were given starter packs for off-take of their own business; adding that they also monitor them to ensure most of their challenges was tackled just like those into fishery, grasscutter breeding and snail farming.
Johnson Chukwuobasi, a newly elected member of the Enugu State House of Assembly, commended Okechukwu for encouraging women of the area to sustain whatever they are doing in agricultural sector.