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First Lady of Nigeria Oluremi Tinubu has endorsed the Federal Government’s Agri360 Mechanisation Training Initiative, which targets the empowerment of 5,000 women and young Nigerians with skills in modern agriculture.
Mrs Tinubu described the initiative as a strategic investment in Nigeria’s agricultural future, saying the country’s drive towards food security was gaining momentum.
She spoke on Wednesday at the National Colloquium on the Role of Women and Youth in Advancing Agricultural Mechanisation in Nigeria and the unveiling of the Agri360 initiative at the State House Banquet Hall, Abuja.
Represented at the event by the wife of the Vice President, Nana Shettima, the First Lady said the programme would equip 5,000 women and youths with skills in agricultural mechanisation, digital agriculture, equipment operation and maintenance, entrepreneurship and agribusiness management.
In a statement signed by Special Assistant on Media and ICT, Office of the Vice President, Kwapchi Hamman, she said the initiative was particularly important because the future of Nigeria’s agricultural sector depended largely on giving women and young people the skills, tools and opportunities to participate meaningfully in modern agriculture.
According to her, mechanisation would transform traditional farming methods by increasing productivity, reducing the physical burden of farming and making agriculture more attractive to younger Nigerians.
Mrs Tinubu said the benefits of mechanisation extended beyond crop production to equipment operation and maintenance, agricultural processing, logistics, technology and other segments of the agricultural value chain.
She noted that young Nigerians were already changing the face of agriculture through digital technology, precision farming, artificial intelligence, drones and other innovations.
“They no longer see agriculture as subsistence; they see it as a huge opportunity, an enterprise and a career path to prosperity,” she said.
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The First Lady also stressed the need to expand opportunities for women in agriculture, saying empowering them with skills and resources to earn incomes and grow businesses would have a multiplier effect on families and communities.
Speaking at the event, the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari, said mechanisation would ease agricultural production by providing farmers with modern machinery and equipment, thereby reducing the physical strain associated with farming.
He said the Agri360 initiative was designed to cover the agricultural process from land preparation to value addition, while ensuring farmers had access to water and machinery.
Kyari said the government was moving from conversations about agriculture to concrete action, with the sector increasingly being positioned as an economic enterprise capable of transforming the lives of Nigerian farmers.
He said this aligned with President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, which identifies agriculture as a major driver of economic growth, food security and job creation.
The event also featured goodwill messages from the Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security, Aliyu Abdullahi; Patricia Stan-Dioka of Mela-Chiyoma Pat Limited, one of the initiative’s partners; and the governors of Abia, Alex Otti; Akwa Ibom, Umo Eno; and Lagos, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, among other stakeholders.
The colloquium identified low mechanisation, limited access to finance, inadequate skills and infrastructure, as well as the exclusion of women and youths, as major barriers to agricultural productivity in Nigeria.
It stressed that wider access to mechanisation could reduce drudgery, create jobs, attract young Nigerians to agriculture, empower women and strengthen the country’s food security.
The Agri360 initiative is expected to provide a platform for inclusive participation while building the technical and entrepreneurial capacity of women and youths for sustainable agricultural development.
