Tinubu Says Mechanisation Critical to Attracting Youths, Empowering Women

First Lady Oluremi Tinubu has described agricultural mechanisation as critical to attracting young Nigerians to farming and empowering women to participate more meaningfully in the agricultural value chain.

Tinubu stated this on Wednesday at the National Colloquium on the Role of Women and Youth in Advancing Agricultural Mechanisation in Nigeria and the unveiling of the Agri-360 Mechanisation Training Initiative in Abuja.

Represented by the wife of the Vice-President, Hajiya Nana Shettima, the First Lady said the initiative would train 5,000 women and young people in agricultural mechanisation, digital agriculture, equipment operation and maintenance, entrepreneurship and agribusiness management.

She said mechanisation would increase agricultural productivity, reduce the physical burden associated with farming and make the sector more attractive to young Nigerians seeking sustainable careers.

Tinubu noted that opportunities created by mechanisation extended beyond farming to equipment operation and maintenance, processing, logistics, technology and other areas of the agricultural value chain.

She said young Nigerians were already embracing digital technologies, precision farming, artificial intelligence and drones, adding that many now viewed agriculture as an enterprise and career opportunity rather than subsistence farming.

The First Lady also stressed the importance of creating more opportunities for women, saying access to skills and resources would enable them to build sustainable businesses, increase household incomes and contribute to food security.

The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Sen. Abubakar Kyari, said mechanisation was essential to reducing drudgery, increasing productivity and making agriculture more attractive to young people.

Kyari said Nigeria needed to develop a mechanisation-as-a-service model linking farmers with machinery, technical skills, financing, maintenance, processing and markets.

He said the Agri-360 initiative was designed to cover the agricultural process from land preparation to value addition, while improving farmers’ access to machinery and other resources.

The initiative is being implemented as a three-year programme and is expected to equip beneficiaries with practical skills that can support employment, agribusiness development and increased agricultural productivity.