Ben Ezechime, Enugu
The Enugu State Government, through the Ministry of Agriculture and Agro-Industrialisation has commenced a two-day capacity building for extension agents, lead farmers and relevant staff of the ministry on computer appreciation, digital record keeping and Microsoft office.
The Commissioner for Agriculture and Agro-Industrialisation, Hon. Patrick Ubru, said the training was to key into the e-governance programme of Governor Peter Mbah which aims at shifting emphasis from manual way of doing things to digital.
“This is to train farmers and extension workers on the modern way of information gathering and dissemination aimed at improving productivity among farmers and save man hours of doing things manually,” Ubru said.
He said that the time had changed and that people were now moving with the trend instead of getting stuck.
He urged the participants to take their training seriously to improve on new technological way in agriculture.
“Time has changed. Please learn this because it will help you. You don’t feel too old to learn. You learn irrespective of your age,” he said.
Ubru said that when the idea of organising the training was muted to the governor, he quickly approved it so that farmers would get abreast with the digital way of farming before this year’s farming season commenced.
Speaking, the head of planning, research and statistics in the ministry, Miss Madueke Emmanuella, said the training was to prepare the farmers and the staff to key into the e-governance programme of the governor which in the long run would increase agro production.
Emmanuella said that with the training, the participants could easily procure data and be able to disseminate them easily.
“For every data we ask of them, it should be sent in Excel sheet, in a Microsoft word and in a digital form so that we can have data we can store and refer back to in years to come,” she said.
