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Food Security: NDDC Set To Partner Large Scale Farm Holdings In Niger Delta
The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) is set to collaborate with large scale farm holdings in the region.
The move is geared towards boosting agro-allied productivities and ensuring food security in the region and the country at large.
Under the arrangement, the NDDC team led by the Commission’s Director of Agriculture and Fisheries, Mrs. Winifred Chinyere 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.
This was to physically assess their infrastructural facilities and state of readiness to key into the initiative of the interventionist agency.
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 Managing Director, Dr. Samuel Ogbuku, is in line with the policy of the present Federal Government which emphasises 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 agric thus making it more attractive to them.
“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 organising necessary trainings 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,” she said .
Mr. Isaac Oghogho, the Chief Executive of Adventium Songhai Delta Nigeria Limited expressed the readiness of his organisation to partner NDDC saying it will facilitate its projection to transform the 137.5 hectares farm to its dream agro-industrial processing and tourism centre.
Speaking in the same vein, Engr. (Dr.) Emmanuel Audu-Ohwavborua, Managing Director of Emmppek Farms told the NDDC team that the farm presently has two pens with capacity for 100,000 birds as well as a feedmill that caters for the feeding of the poultry products.
On his part,, 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 Federal Government of Nigeria to subsidize maize and soya to save the country’s agricultural sector from collapsing.
He also pleaded for Government’s intervention in the agric sector by evolving a policy to actively promote patronage of made-in-Nigeria food products to grow the nation’s agro-allied industry.