Stories by Raheem Akingbolu

Governor of Taraba State, Agbu Kefas, on Monday in Lagos called on individuals, private organisations and government to give priority to Agriculture to deepen Nigeria’s economic growth and Gross Domestic Products (GDP).

The governor pointed out that the sector remained a significant contributor to the GDP and the largest employer, providing livelihoods for a large portion of the population and therefore urged stakeholders to key into farming to ensure everybody is well fed.

Speaking during a fact-finding mission to the facilities and factories of Nigeria’s leading Agricultural and Food Systems company, Origin Tech Group, he commended President Bola Tinubu’s pragmatic approach to combat food shortage by putting developmental policies in place to attract youths to farming and give a new hope to the citizens of Nigeria.

During the visit, the governor after taking a tour of the facilities to see the end-to-end agricultural equipment including bulldozers for land clearing, tractors for cultivation, harvesters, planters, and irrigation equipment for large-scale agricultural development, reaffirmed his commitment to massive agricultural revolution in the state which is expected to commence immediately through the partnership with Origin Tech Group.

According to him, “It’s a very impressive initiative and I think we’re going to key in to support what Origin Tech Group is doing so that the organisation too can also support us and I think this is one of the people that I would say have been able to read through the minds of the people. 

 “When it comes to the national issue on food shortage, Mr. President is trying to give a new hope to the citizens of Nigeria that everybody must key in to farming, everybody must be well fed. There should be no single individual in Nigeria who should go to bed hungry, we don’t have any reason to go on overseas trips in search of development partners as far as agricultural development is concerned with the kind of value and capacity that Origin is bringing to the agric value-chain.”

Governor Kefas commended Origin Group, stating that the company has put in place a good initiative to assist the country to get it right. 

“I want to thank you for inviting me to this place and when we get back there, we’ll do our planning. I’m sure we’re going to sign the MOU today and we’re going to partner to make sure that we get into business,’’ the governor assured.

In his response, the Executive Chairman of the company, Prince Samuel Joseph Samuel, said: “The plan we have is well integrated, where you have the logistics support, various capacities that ensures end-to-end from land preparation, to plating, harvesting, processing, and the sophisticated equipment that are to be used amongst others. We are very ready to support the state. We also know that already this year’s harvest is very good and we’re already working to ensure that before the next few weeks we can go back to the state grains from the state. It is a partnership that we believe will better the health of the harvest.”

According to him, “We are confident that we can move the farmers and the state to ensure that we achieve this. We can only thank the farmers for their hard work, and this is why one of our driving force for doing this is to ensure rural prosperity by ensuring that every farmer earns enough value from their crop which has always been a mirage because of the absence of structure and infrastructure.’’