Asaba: The Livelihood Improvement Family Enterprises-Niger Delta (LIFE-ND) project has impacted over 6,000 youths and women through agribusiness in 10 participating local government areas of Delta state. Mr Collins Ashoro, Delta Coordinator of the LIFE-ND Project, disclosed this at a Media Roundtable on Wednesday in Asaba.
According to News Agency of Nigeria, Ashoro stated that the project adopted an innovative incubation model, known as the ‘apprentice programme; incubator-incubatee model’, to train beneficiaries on modern and transformative agribusinesses. This initiative aims to create jobs, generate wealth, and enhance the state economy. The event was organized to review the project’s achievements in its first phase, which spanned from February 24, 2019, to March 31, 2025, and to discuss the additional financing phase that commenced in April 2025.
Ashoro highlighted that the project has empowered a total of 4,373 incubatees in its first phase. With the additional financing, 630 incubatees were profiled earlier, and a new set of 1,020 incubatees is set to be inaugurated on Thursday. This will bring the total number of beneficiaries, comprising youths and women, to 6,020 from the project’s inception in 2019 to date in Delta State.
The LIFE-ND project is a multi-sectoral and multi-scale programme targeting nine states in the Niger Delta region, including Edo, Delta, Cross Rivers, Akwa-Ibom, Bayelsa, Imo, Abia, Ondo, and River States. The beneficiaries are youth aged 18 to 35 years and women-headed households. All profiled incubatees received training on prioritized commodities such as oil palm processing, fishery, poultry, and cassava production and processing value chain.
The Delta beneficiaries were selected from local government areas including Bomadi, Burutu, Ethiope East, Ika North East, Ika South, Ndokwa West, Ndokwa East, Okpe, Sapele, and Ughelli North LGAs. Ashoro expressed gratitude to Governor Sheriff Oborevwori for the prompt payment of the counterpart fund, which sustains the agricultural transformative project. He appealed for further funding to include other LGAs not captured by the programme.
The overall goal of the LIFE-ND project is the transformation of the rural economy, enabling all rural populations to drive prosperity and benefit equally. The project aims to enhance income, food security, and job creation for rural youth and women through sustainable agri-enterprise development in the Niger-Delta region of Nigeria.
The LIFE-ND Agribusiness incubation apprentice programme has completed its first six-year phase, empowering 4,373 beneficiaries. The project has now transitioned into the Additional Financing phase, which spans three years from March 2025 to March 2028, with a financial plan of $32 million to empower 10,805 beneficiaries in Delta State.
The state project coordinator emphasized the project’s focus on sustainability, gender issues, persons with disabilities (PWDs), climate-smart agriculture, nutrition, and efficient youth-focused digital agribusiness solutions. However, he noted challenges such as low literacy levels among beneficiaries, bank bureaucracy, low-value loans available to farmers, low savings and record-keeping, high input costs, limited participation by PWDs, and limited funds to expand the project to other LGAs.
Ashoro urged major stakeholders, including the state government, to support beneficiaries with alternative funds to bridge the gap in asset acquisition due to inflationary trends. He called for the state government to adopt the incubation model and release funds to expand to other non-participating LGAs.
In his remarks, the State Commissioner for Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Mr Val Arenyeka, represented by the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Dr Edmond Orioko, commended the state LIFE-ND for its achievements over the years. Arenyeka assured the project coordinator of the ministry’s support to ensure the sustainability of the projects in the state.