In its determination to engage its youths in aquaculture, the Ondo State Government has admitted over 100,000 in its aquaculture projects and has plans to further extend the programme to accommodate more.

The state’s Commissioner for Information, Kayode Akinmade, said the government’s desire to further extend the project led to the invitation of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) to deepen the aquaculture business and make it modern, reports DailyIndependent.

Mr Akinmade said the government only recently signed an understanding with IITA, Ibadan, on how to modernise the state’s Agric Village in Ore and in other places adding that “the youth farmers are there now working with IITA to make sure they raise the standard of the settlement,” he said.

According to the Commissioner: “We have about 100,000 youths in the aquaculture project, but what we are doing now is we want to extend it further, that is why we brought in IITA, so that it can deepen the business and make them more modern and then include processing.”

The processing, he said, would make each farmer specialise in either rearing of birds or fish to enable each of the farmers have knowledge of how to process, adding that the farmers are also being trained on how to sell their products in a way that would make them almost imperishable.

The commissioner informed that the government has its own fish farms adding that “what we do is to encourage our farmers and teach them the best method of fish farming and that is what we are doing.”
Source:www.thefishsite.com