An NGO, Agricultural Social Entrepreneurship Foundation (ASEF), has said that no fewer than 40,000 Nigerian youths will be trained for job opportunities in its ‘Waste4Meal’ farming project.
The ASEF President, Mr Oluwole Azeez, made this known while signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with New Generation Nutrition (NGN) and FIDAS African, at International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, on Friday.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Waste4Meal is the conversion of wastes into useable agricultural products, such as fertilisers, animal feeds and oil.
Azeez said that 40,000 Nigerians and no fewer than 100,000 African youths and women would be trained on Black Soldier Fly farming and waste aggregation recyclination, with the aim of making them earn a living, promote food security and reduce poverty.
He said that the trainees would be divided into clusters that would spread across all the states in Nigeria and other Africa countries like Ghana, South Africa, Liberia, Uganda
and Cameroon.
‘The cluster persons will create farm for them and work with investors that will bring money into the project for them.
‘I believe that Nigeria can feed itself if the citizenry taps into the project,’ he said.
Azeez said that Nigeria, being the biggest importer of animal feeds in Africa, imported the protein components of animal feeds which could be generated locally, using food waste and other organic waste and black soldier fly.
‘The banana peels, remnant of amala and rice can be converted into fertiliser and protein that fishes and pigs can eat and as well converted into oil we use in frying meat,’ Azeez said.
Also speaking, the ASEF Chief Executive Officer, Mrs Rosemary Adebayo, said the objective of the MoU was to create awareness and empowerment in inset farming industry and introduce Africans into the waste4meal project.
‘We intend to promote alternative sources of protein for farmers to reduce the difficulty they face in the agricultural sector in Nigeria and reduce the amount spen
t on animal feeds.
‘Waste4meal project is about training people the whole value-chain of the black soldier fly profitability,’ she said.
In her remarks, the FIDAS Africa Executive Director, Mrs Omolola Elsie, said that the organisation, being a decentralised online training platform focusing on agriculture, would ensure the success of the training.
Elsie said that her platform would be used to implement all the training component of the project.
Also speaking, the representative of NGN, Mr John Olabisi, said that the project would address the problem of food and livestock feed insufficiency in Nigeria.
In his own contribution, Dr Debo Akande, Director of Business Incubation Platform (BIP), IITA, and Executive Adviser to Oyo State Governor on Agricbusiness, commended the project organisers.
Akande, represented by the IITA Head of Social and Corporate Governance, Mr Wale Oladokun, said that it was a thing of joy for people to be trained and be made to turn the outcome of such training into profitable ways
Source: News Agency of Nigeria