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By Seyi Babalola
The Enugu State Governor, Peter Mbah, has highlighted agriculture as pivotal to poverty eradication.
He stressed that his administration aims to achieve zero hunger and eliminate poverty within the next eight years, placing a strong focus on developing the agricultural sector.
He emphasised that the administration is actively equipping young people with skills to produce farm inputs using mechanized methods.
He disclosed this during an interview he had with Daily Sun in his office.
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He said: “Agriculture is also another sector where we are doing radical things because we see agriculture as a sector that could enhance our growth plan. It is a sector where if we are looking at growing our economy exponentially; we cannot neglect it.
“We looked at creating an agriculture sector where we can bring in commercial farmers to farm and we then said that what will make it more attractive is to have a special agro-processing zone so that we capture the full value in the chain of production, processing, distribution and all that.
“We also said that for smallholder farmers, we needed to build clusters and increase their capacity so that they can also do very well.
“When we talk about eradicating poverty, to achieve zero hunger in the next eight years, agriculture in the short, medium and long term is that sector where we hope to accomplish that.
“We are encouraging and building the skills of our young people to take to the production of farm inputs, getting them to migrate from the manual way of farming to mechanized way of farming.
“And we are also working with them to do that. We are not leaving them to themselves. We are not just providing extension services; we are also helping them to provide those machinery and implements that are needed to enhance their production capacity.”
He however added that the state now has a land bank of about 300,000 hectares they hope to attract commercial farmers and that is already ongoing.
