The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has collaborated with large-scale farm holdings to boost agro-allied productivity and ensure food security in the region and the country at large.
Under the scheme, the NDDC team, led by the Commission’s Director of Agriculture and Fisheries, Mrs. Winifred Madume, on Wednesday, paid working visits to some farm holdings in Delta State, notably Adventium Songhai Delta Nigeria Limited, Emmppek Farms and Okemute Farms, all located in Sapele, Sapele Local Government Area.
The visits were intended for physical assessments of their infrastructural facilities and state of readiness to key into the initiative of the commission.
Speaking during the assessment visits to the various farms, Madume noted with delight that the food security agenda, which she described as an initiative of the NDDC’s Managing Director, Dr. Samuel Ogbuku, is in line with the policy of the Federal Government which emphasizes stakeholders’ engagement in the development process.
According to her, the NDDC’s intervention in the area of agriculture is, among others, aimed at teaching the teeming youths of the region the business aspects of agriculture, thus making it more attractive to them.
She said, “In this regard, NDDC is interfacing with the identified farm holdings in the region on their challenges, areas of needs and why the nation is still unable to feed its people.
“NDDC’s working tour is to explore areas of collaboration and mainly on how to absorb agro-allied trainees in addition to organizing necessary training for prospective farmers, particularly interested retirees.
“Right now, this NDDC programme is going on simultaneously in Imo, Abia, Edo and Ondo States, among others, and at the end of the day, we will collate our various field reports and make our presentations to the Group Managing Director for action, all in the bid to ensure food security in the region and Nigeria at large.”
The Chief Executive, Adventium Songhai Delta Nigeria Limited, Mr. Isaac Oghogho, expressed the readiness of his organisation to partner with the NDDC, saying it will facilitate its projection to transform the 137.5 hectares farm into its dream agro-industrial processing and tourism centre.
Speaking in the same vein, the Managing Director, Emmppek Farms, Emmanuel Audu-Ohwavborua, told the NDDC team that the farm presently has two pens with a capacity for 100,000 birds as well as a feed mill that caters to the feeding of the poultry products
According to him, the farm also engages in commercial production of egg powder from raw eggs.
Audu-Ohwavborua used the opportunity of the occasion to appeal to the FG to subsidise maize and soya to save the country’s agricultural sector from collapsing.
He also pleaded for the government’s intervention in the agricultural sector by evolving a policy to actively promote patronage of made-in-Nigeria food products to grow the nation’s agro-allied industry.
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