Eket (Akwa Ibom) – The Akwa Ibom Government on Tuesday said it would adopt Public Private Partnership Approach (PPPA) to boost Agriculture and reduce the cost of staple food like garri in the state.[pro_ad_display_adzone id=”10″]
Mr Matthew Ekaette, Akwa Ibom Commissioner of Agriculture and Natural Resources stated this at a meeting with Stakeholders in the Agriculture value chain in the three Senatorial Districts of Akwa Ibom in Eket, Eket Local Government Area.
He said that state government was ready to partner stakeholders in Agriculture to reduce the cost of garri and other staple foods by 50 per cent in two years.
“We are adopting a PPPA as a measure to reduce cost of garri as a pilot project.
“Government is ready to partner stakeholders in Agriculture to achieve this target.
“Not only in the area of cassava production but in other areas like cereals, root crops, sea food, fisheries and forest,’’ Ekaette said.
He said that crops would be produced in commercial quantities in the state, saying that the state was discussing with investors to attract industries to the state to boost processing and packaging.
“All these food and cash crops must be produced in commercial quantities and Akwa Ibom should be an exporter of food and not importer of food.
“Government is urging you to partner with it to reduce the cost of garri by 50 per cent in two years.
“And government is also interested in reducing the cost of producing the garri, so that you don’t carry all the cost on your head alone.
“We discussing with some investors who are interested in coming to Akwa Ibom and some of the investor are interested in relocating to Akwa Ibom to partner with us in this drive,” he said.
He said that Gov. Udom Emmanuel would also come in with external investors in the drive to industrialise the state and to process agricultural produce and investment in other sectors.
“We will have investors who would come in and bring industries to Akwa Ibom and then we will be waiting for you to harvest, so that they can bring their machines to process them.
“They would then add value to what we have, so that we can now start having product that can stand the test of time,’’ he said.
Ekaette said agriculture had the capacity to boost foreign exchange earnings for the state.
“We can start to export what we are producing after adding value to it and we will discover in this effort that our naira power will begin to go up,’’ he said.
The commissioner said that government was ready to empower farmers in the state, adding that farmers would be assisted in moving into mechanized farming to bring more crops under cultivation.
“Government has beautiful packages for farmers to make their job easier and ensure that they enjoy doing their business,’’ he said.
He warned that government packages would not be given to individual farmers but through cooperative societies.
“We need to form ourselves into real farmers’ cooperatives, because port folio farmers would not be recognised in this development drive,’’ he said.
Earlier, Mr Frank Archibong, Transition Chairman of Eket council, commended state government for the initiative, saying that the state had abandoned agriculture in the past.
Archibong commended President Jonathan’s administration for transforming Agriculture through various programme in the country.
“Before now Agriculture had not been given the focus it deserved.
“In the last administration of President Jonathan, I think there was a little revival and we could attest to that. I think we all know that one of the vibrant Minister in the last administration was the Agriculture minister.
He said that Gov. Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom would give Agriculture a pride of place in this administration. (NAN)
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