As part of efforts to improve ease of doing business, especially among the farmers and agribusiness operators, the Ogun state government has facilitated a business meeting between financial institutions and agribusiness operators in order to position them for loan obligations.
Speaking to newsmen at the sideline of the workshop in Abeokuta, the Senior Special Assistant to Gov. Dapo Abiodun on Agriculture Dr. Angel Adelaja-Kuye, said the government through ministry of agriculture had partnered with financial institutions to train 100 youths on how to have access to loan to boost their agric business.
She revealed that the youths were picked from the Ogun Job portal, saying it was part of the current administration’s efforts to reduce unemployment.
She said that the job portal which was created by the state government had really helped in providing jobs for the youths in the state.
She noted that the governor was working to empower youths in various sectors of the state economy, including agriculture, industry trade investment, health, education among others.
“Today we are training about 100 individuals , this training is an empowerment itself because after the 4 -day training, they will get their certificates, that certificates is a key to so many different Agric finance opportunities which they will need to apply for any financial institutions.
” So any financiers that see their certificates will know that they have gone through training, business plan writing and financial management on how to manage their business efficiently and they are more likely to get funds from financial institutions.
“This is just a pilot, this is the first one we will be doing on this programme and it is going to be regular activity, where we will continue to link them to this funding.
” The success of these youths is going to actually show to other youths on how much opportunities are in accessing agricultural finance and we hope that even without this programme these youths can be a testament to how to effectively access Agriculture finance so that the young people around them can key in as well with or without the training,” she said.
Meanwhile, one of the participants, an agriculturist , Adewuyi David , appreciated the state government for organizing the programme, saying that it was a fantastic one.
He sad that the initiative would help to expand his agric business when he had access to loans.
Adewuyi said that he believed strongly that after the workshop they would have access to funds from financial institutions.
Also another participants , Tope Babalola, said that the training was meant to teach them on how to get access to loans.
Babalola appreciated the state government for the initiative, saying that lack of funds was one of the problem of the youths to boost business.
