Chief Tunde Badmus, the Scheme Manager and National Anchor of the programme, disclosed this at a town hall meeting with poultry farmers in Lokoja on Friday.

According to MyNation News, Mr Badmus said that NEGPRO had started operations in six pilot states, including Kogi.

He said that 150 poultry farmers in Kogi had been registered for the loan, as approved by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD), the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Bank of Agriculture (BOA).

According to him, the scheme is to create employment for unemployed citizens who were also determined to become employers of labour.

"A prospective beneficiary must have a farm that can accommodate about 2,000 pullets; the farm must be accessible, while its owner must have a basic knowledge of poultry farming and should also belong to Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN).

"The personal interactions with intending beneficiaries today will be followed by assessment visits to their farms by the technical committee," Mr Badmus said.

Sunday Okwori, a representative of the CBN, applauded Kogi poultry farmers for working hard to be among the first six pilot states to benefit from the NEGPRO scheme.