Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State has reiterated his administration’s resolve to leverage agriculture sector and the agribusiness value chain for wealth creation for the people.
According to Governor Obaseki, it is the responsibility of government at all levels to make the people rich, “Our emphasis in Edo State is to talk less and look for honest and direct means to empower the people and make them rich.”
Obaseki stated this at the ongoing maiden Edo Food and Agric Trade Fair, which started on Monday, December 10. The governor in a paper ‘Inclusive Agric Value Chain Development and Funding: Workable Models and Institutional Bottleneck,’ said, “Nigeria spends over N20 billion on food importation annually on products that can be grown locally.
“We need to have financial inclusion so that our method of farming will change from producing small units to producing in large scale to cater for the growing population, which is a huge market for us.”
On the agricultural value chain, he said local farmers should be well educated on the various stages of the value chain and the opportunities that abound to improve and grow agricultural practice in the state. “They need to understand and know how to access funds for agriculture in order to go into full scale mechanised system to increase yield of food crops,” he stated.
Thomas Oloriegbe, the chief operating officer of Nosak Group, maker of Nosak Famili Vegetable Oil and Nosak Famili Pure Palm Oil, in a statement said in reflecting the agric value chain, there should be optimum closure of the infrastructural gap such as access roads, electricity, and water supply, among others.
Oloriegbe in his paper presentation, ‘Growing Edo State Economy and Agric Value Chain Using the Bottom-Up Model of Development,’ said, “Farmers should be educated on the ways they can grow their businesses by embracing the financial opportunities through the various Agric intervention funds provided by the Central Bank of Nigerian (CBN) and the Bank of Industry (BoI) as well as organised Cooperative Societies.”
According to Oloriegbe, accessing these funds will further improve the value chain and encourage more participation of the local farmers into agricultural practice in large scale.
Using the Nosak Group example, he said through Saturn Farms Limited, a plantation of 1,053 hectares with 3 tons milling capacity of palm oil, and Nosak Farm Produce Limited, a refining/processing plant with 200 tons refining capacity, the group was improving the value chain by putting to use the bottom-up model to enhance productivity and inclusiveness in agricultural practice.
