Our correspondent in Cross River State, Emma Unah, captures the new trend in the state where a large number of youths have dumped internet fraud, aka ?Yahoo Yahoo,? activities for farming.

?I cannot indulge in Yahoo Yahoo. I have a steady income from selling my farm produce. I farm rice, cassava and yams and my harvest is quite encouraging,? Enyede Odum, a youth in Yala LGA told NDV.

Odum is not alone in this. It?s a revolution of some sort. Many young men and women are taking to farming. The state is blessed with fertile land for cassava, rice, yam, cocoa, cocoyam, sweet potato and many other crops.

These youths make a lot of money from the sale of farm produce harvested from their farms. With the money from the sales, they buy motorcycles, build modern houses and enjoy themselves.

The governor of the state is collaborating with the African Development Bank, ADB, and other strategic partners to introduce fresh innovations in farming to encourage the youths.

He has created a Special Agriculture Development Programme, SADP, to make the state an agro production hub.

The target of the project is to assist farmers with prerequisite knowledge in growing crops, harvest, marketing and storage of produce to reduce post-harvest losses. All aimed at creating more jobs and improving household income. The targeted crops for the state?s SADP are cocoa, rice and cassava.

At a sensitization programme for youths in Ogoja which also had in attendance council chairmen of the five LGAs in northern part of the state ? Yala, Ogoja, Bekwara, Obudu and Obanlikwu, with their vice-chairmen, leaders of legislature, councillors, women leaders, traditional rulers, clergy and other strategic agriculture partners, the benefits of the programme were highlighted.

Dr Felix Eje, the Head of Special Project Unit in the Governor?s Office in Calabar told the youths to be actively involved in the project.

?There is a level of emphasis on this programme, which is to maintain gender balance. Also, youth participation between the ages of eighteen and twenty-nine is quite significant?

He called on all stakeholders to come forward with innovations and technology that will help mobilisation at the grassroots level.

?You are the implementing side. You as the supervisor or Director of Agriculture should go on a field monitoring drive to ensure you juxtapose that with what you are doing in the office.

?Let the traditional rulers manage conflict, mobilise our people to highlight the opportunities that SADZ provides,? he said. (Vanguard)

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