Agriculture can absorb 62m unemployed youths!!!

Provost of the College of Agriculture, Olabisi Onabanjo University(OOU), Ago-Iwoye, Prof. Oluwatobi Adeokun, has advised students against dropping agriculture-based courses out of ignorance or pressure. He said the courses are lucrative.
Adeokun also counselled prospective university students not to be discouraged or dissuaded from choosing agriculture as a course or discipline at the higher institutions, saying agriculture still holds the key for their future and the country.
The professor of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development gave the advice at the OOU permanent site while speaking with reporters after delivering the institution’s 67th inaugural lecture.
He said there is no profession that has the capacity to engage the burgeoning youth population like agriculture, adding that of the 67million figure of the unemployed Nigerian graduates, agriculture alone can absorb 62 million of them if governments provide the right support.
Adeokun said: “If it is because of jobs prospect that is making students of Agriculture to switch over to other courses, then they are ignorant. Is there any profession that can employ many people like agriculture?
“It is only for government to take active position and support people, provide lands, finance and encouraged them. Now we have about 67million unemployed graduates looking for jobs but agriculture alone can employ almost 62 million of them.”
In his lecture entitled: Travails of weaver birds: Whither the agricultural extensionist delivered last week, Adeokun noted that the future development of any nation depends on the vibrancy of its children and youths. He frowned that Nigerian youths have no interest in agriculture.
He said the situation  is not helped by parents who insist that their children and wards should become pharmacists, engineers, lawyers and medical doctors at a time where everybody wants Nigeria to be “self sufficient in food production and even export same to the outside world.”
He said:”As far as agricultural practice is concerned in Nigeria, studies indicated that Nigerian children and youths are not interested in agricultural practice. This is evident in the low patronage of agriculture as a course of study in our high institutions.
“Even at the tertiary level, students admitted to study agriculture always indicate interest to change to other courses. Right here(OOU) in the College of Agricultural Sciences, students often indicate willingness to change from core agriculture programmes to social and management oriented courses in agriculture.
“Some of the factors responsible for students bias against agriculture include the issue of using the farm as a punishment to the students, the issue of parents who do not want their children or wards to take to agriculture and students who prefer management courses to agriculture.”