Ogun State is driving a campaign to attract the young and old to agro businesses to boost the sector and create more opportunities toward food security, job creation and empowerment. DANIEL ESSIET reports.
OGUN-BASED agro entrepreneur Sola Adeniyi is attracting young Nigerians to farm-based enterprises.
An agro entrepreneur, he has a plantain estate, pineapple farm, a moringa processor and several acres in cultivation.
He is one of the young agripreneur that Ogun has produced that have made tremendous achievements from agri businesses.
Commissioner for Agriculture, Dr Samson Odedina said the state considers investors in the sector critical to the government’s mission to economic recovery, job creation and creation of a sustainable source of income for farmers.
According to him, growth in the agriculture sector is effective in reducing poverty and avoidance of food insecurity. To this end, he said the government is creating an enabling environment for investors in agriculture to help restore food production and job creation.
He maintained that agriculture was one of the priority areas for development with many policies to support capital sources for agricultural and rural development.
Under this administration, he said agriculture has special role in driving industrialisation. As a result, he said the government’s public-private partnership (PPP) policy was working with the Agriculture Ministry to attract investors that could promote food production is such a way that the rural areas would be focused and exploited, to bring economic benefits and create a premise for sustainable economic development on state scale.
According to him, the state government operates an open-door policy for investors with the mandate to support agriculture in various capacities and value-chain.
“We are ready to create an enabling environment in terms of access to land, favourable policies and advisory services,’’ he said. He reiterated that the agriculture and agro-processing sector is rife with opportunities for investors and entrepreneurs.
These various opportunities, according to him, are available to foreign and local investors.
The commissioner said the livestock sector in the state, particularly the cattle value-chain, had a lot of potential yet to be invested in.
He said this would, in turn, benefit the youth and smallholder farmers.
He said there were initiatives for youths in the rural and communities to improve their means of livelihood and help them to live decent lives.
Also, there were programmes to promote community-based on-farm and off-farm businesses along key agricultural value chain for job and wealth creation.
He said beneficiaries were identified, trained and supported in various segments of agriculture. The support includes access to affordable input for sustainable production, agro-processing and packaging, transportation and link to competitive finance and markets.