Ogun State plans agriculture value chain to enhance food preservation

 

BY BALOGUN KEHINDE

Ogun State Government has promised to create an enhanced agricultural value chain that would help address the challenges of consumable food, as well as agricultural processing in the country.

Secretary to the State Government, Mr. Olatokunbo Talabi, who stated this while on inspection visit to the Ogun State Broadcasting Corporation (OGBC) and Traffic Compliance and Enforcement Agency (TRACE) Headquarters in Abeokuta, stressed that one of the bane of agricultural processing and production in the country was the lack of proper storage facility, reaffirming that the state government was fully determined to tackle the challenges identified.

Talabi added that the Prince Dapo Abiodun led-administration had set machineries in motion, to source for and identify reliable off-takers of farm produce, to address the problem of food preservation.

He pointed out that the agricultural sector was one of the ways to tackle unemployment and youth restiveness, describing the sector as the bedrock of most developed countries in the world.

“We came to the realisation that agriculture is the mainstay of a nation’s economy and we therefore resolved to focus on rice, cassava and maize, as well as how to enhance the agricultural value chain for optimal food sufficiency across the State and the nation at large”, he added.

The state scribe also revealed that the Ogun Job Portal initiative had registered no fewer than 100,000 applicants in less than a month of its launch, out of which 10,000 beneficiaries were to be provided with hectares of arable land, saying the move was in fulfilment of the promise to improve food sufficiency and create employment opportunities for the people of the State, particularly the youth and women.

He revealed that the concept of the Oko’wo Dapo micro empowerment scheme was designed to eradicate poverty and reduce unemployment among the people of the State.