Ekiti Livestock Development Center Trainees Commence Culling Of 10,000 Table-Size Chickens.

Ekiti Livestock Development Center Trainees Commence Culling Of 10,000 Table-Size Chickens. 

......Govt vows to continue empowering youths.

Youths undergoing training at the Livestock Development Center site of the Ekiti State Government Agricultural hub at Erifun have commenced culling of the 10,000 table-size chickens that were hatched about five weeks ago.

Speaking during a monitoring visit to the site, the State Commissioner for Information, Rt. Hon. Taiwo Olatunbosun described the development as the fruition of a strategically planned scheme with support from donor agencies that was designed to train and empower youths in the State.

Rt. Hon. Olatunbosun stressed that the five-week period from hatching to maturity of the birds coupled with the readymade market makes the scheme a short-time enterprise and very profitable for youths to venture into.

Olatunbosun reiterated the commitment of the Biodun Oyebanji administration to the welfare of people in the State particularly the youths, assuring that the administration would continue to initiate and implement programmes designed to make youths self-reliant and employers of labour.

He urged youths in the State to take advantage of the opportunities provided by the State Government to make themselves financially independent and possible employers of labour.

He said “we were here about five weeks ago, just like we were here to witness the first set of broilers that were raised at the centre. Today after five weeks, we are here again to witness the broilers that we saw as day old chicks now fully grown enough to be eaten or consumed.

“The joy of it is that our trainees have received a lot of practical and expertise training that can make them to stand on their own. One of the things that Government is doing through the Ministry of Agriculture is the promotion of short term business enterprise that can earn them resources that can give them good money within a short period of time. 

“The choice of broilers as against production of layers that would take minimum of one year plus. Within a period of five weeks, you can have your business and have your gains and reinvest again. This is very good. It shows that our Government is getting it right”. 

“Having trained and setting up the current group, it is our believe that our young ones can take advantage of this opportunity with the Government Agric Ministry to participate in the entrepreneurship training”.

In his remarks, the State Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Security, Mr. Ebenezer Boluwade recalled that a set of 9,000 birds had been culled at the center in September before the current set was hatched and raised.

Assuring of Government’s constituency in implementing the scheme, Boluwade said that the trainees who have become more informed, experienced and exposed would be assisted to set up their own pens and become entrepreneurs in their own rights.

Boluwade disclosed that the State Government had acquired several hectares of land that would be allocated to the graduates of the Center to be used as pens in order to achieve the desired goal of making them successful entrepreneurs.

He assured interested youths of the Agricultural hub’s capability to take in as many of them that are ready to learn and work, adding that there is no excuse for youths in the State to be unemployed with all the initiatives put in place by the State Government.