The immediate past Imo State Deputy Governor, Prince Eze Madumere, has called for protection of Agricultural sector to create room for more investment following its potential to provide massive employment for Nigerian youths.
Prince Madumere was reacting to the President Mohammadu Buhari led federal government move to discourage importation of food items into the country.
Said he, “there is need to guide and protect our agricultural sector so as to attract more investments into the sector. First line charge is security. Food security is an aspect of security that affects every facets of human endeavour.
Success story in rice growing through Rice anchor borrowers scheme took discipline and bold step to get to where we are. Kudos to Mr. President and All Progressives Congress Party. Today, we are beginning to have private investors going into massive mechanised farming. Good pricing and grants have also been of great interest to farmers and investors.”
Prince Madumere also called on Nigerian youths to take the lead in deploying technology to revolutionise Nigerian market by deploying required technology to will aide sales across boarder. Agribusiness is a multi-billion-dollar business. What matters is the processing and packaging.
“I know that our youths are gifted. Some of them have mastered software development. Rather than deploy this for nefarious and illicit trade, I will urge them to think towards putting it into useful purposes like the development of market for Nigerian goods and services.
I am also aware that most of our youths have the creative ability to turn some of these produce into finished goods. I understand that there is N500 billion benchmark to achieve sustainability in the sector. The Central Bank of Nigeria has said that it will work with the Chamber of Commerce to ensure that the money gets to the real end users. It is a great opportunity for our vibrant youths”
The former deputy Governor further hammered on the need to cut off some of the food items that have been produced under unhealthy processes with packages that have destructive health implications. Some of them passed through biotechnology for mass production, without considering their harmfulness to the system. “We need to really control what we eat. Some of these imported food items are poison due to the processes they passed through. What we have here is organic mostly organic food items and they have been rated as the best”; he stated.
Meanwhile, he said that massive investments in agriculture will break the mono-culture economic status of Nigeria, saying that Nigerian traditional food items have become largely internationalised, with Nigerians and foreigners asking for them.
While commending the new leadership of Owerri Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (OCCIMA) led by Mr. Everest Okpara, he called on the body to key into the agenda to help Imo budding agri-entrepreneurs. He encouraged them to continue with programmes to prepare Imo youths while working with relevant agencies so as to enable Imo youths have their fair share.
