Governor Bassey Otu has revealed that his administration’s agricultural programmes in Cross River state have started yielding fruits. He re-emphasised food as a compulsory factor for the growth of any society and reiterated his commitment to better feed the people of the state. The governor said agriculture was receiving serious attention in the state, since it is the biggest employer of labour in the state
“Food security is one of the most serious points on our agenda. It’s one of the thematic areas we try to make sure we bring on board. For any sub-national or any country, to be independent, you must be able to feed your people,” he noted.
Relating the changes over the years, the governor said, “And if you look at the momentum of agriculture, it was going well until the exploration of oil. After that, agriculture went down. So, we gave it serious attention. And today, we are reaping the fruits of our labour.”
That means production is on the rise, and farmers are now better off than they were in recent years. But what will happen to the farm products with the complaints about post-harvest waste being a major challenge for farmers? The governor has a solution to that too. He said, “We are ready as a government to buy all their products. If they want, there is freedom. If they don’t want to, they don’t have a problem. But, we don’t want farmers to be stranded with whatever they have been able to produce or plant. We are ready to collect it, store it in a farm, and then sell it to people who want to buy it.”
Part of the success story the governor is celebrating is the immediate impact on the people on the prices of food items. He said “And if we check, the prices of food here are coming down because the availability is now almost sustainable. Our vision in that area is to feed Nigeria, not only Cross River State. But soon, we’ll be able to feed ourselves.”
He noted that the special agro-programmes in the state were to ensure the state does well in agriculture, particularly in production of cassava, cocoa, maize and oil palm.
“We set up planning schemes to look at these. In cassava, we do have a 5,000 hectare cassava farm, which for now is a pilot scheme that will provide seeds and stems, which we are going to use.
‘‘And the next one we are moving to is 50,000 hectares. For the oil palm, we have got about 3.5 million oil palm seeds from NIFOR, and then we collaborated with oil palm growers which are in numbers to set up the most recent pilots.
“And in cocoa, we are trying to revamp the farms as we are into a public-private partnership to revamp all our cocoa farms. We have some of the biggest cocoa farms even though the cocoa produces are taken from here to stamp elsewhere, which of course is going to change soon,” he said.