Stakeholders in the nation’s agricultural sector have commended the various transformation efforts of the Akwa Ibom State government to re-position the sector in the state.
An agriculturist, Timothy Inyang, said that although Akwa Ibom receives the highest revenue allocation in derivation, agriculture has remained the main source of livelihood for the people.
He said: ‘‘Notable cash crops for which the state is well known include cassava, yam, cocoyam, maize and plantain.
He recalled that the state governor, upon assumption of office for his second term, launched the ‘Completion Agenda’ with objectives to unite the people after rancorous election and to signpost the direction he is taking the state in his last term in office, noting that agriculture is a critical component of his ‘Completion Agenda’.
“There couldn’t be a better avenue through which to bring together people whose main occupation has been farming from days of yore. It is one area that does not recognise dialect, ethnicity or political affiliations.”
“Agriculture is an area for which the state is well known and in which it has both comparative and competitive advantages over many states in the country,’’ he said.
He also said that in pre and post-independence Nigeria when agriculture was the nation’s economic mainstay, what is today Akwa Ibom State was one of the areas that gave the then Eastern Region the edge over other regions in palm produce, one of the country’s major exports then.
Another stakeholder, Henry Essien, said fishing is basically the economic mainstay of people in the riverine areas, while Oron and Eket serve as major fish markets for traders from neighbouring states like Abia and Imo.
“Governor Emmanuel tried in his first term to take agriculture from the subsistence level it has been to a level at which it can be a source of livelihood for farmers, feed the people of the state and also be a foreign exchange earner,” he said.
“He has a string of achievements to show for his effort. Those that stand out as testimonies are cultivation of 2, 100 hectares of cassava plantation in 15 local government areas under the FADAMA project; cultivation of 1, 200 hectares of rice; registration of 40, 000 rice farmers for the Central Bank of Nigeria Anchor Borrowers Programme; training of 450 youths on cocoa maintenance and distribution of 500, 000 improved cocoa seedlings to farmers across 28 cocoa producing local government areas at highly subsidised rates.
‘‘The government set up the Akwa Prime Hatchery that produces 10, 000 birds weekly; constructed the Vegetable Greenhouse and constructed cassava micro-processing mills across the state. It also planted 500 citrus seedlings, 600 hybrid plantain suckers and 1, 000 pineapple suckers, among many others,” Essien said.
Governor Emmanuel has promised that in the Completion Agenda of his second term, he would boost the agricultural sector with a new policy framework that would make the state self-sufficient in food production, generate employment in the sector and also create wealth in the entire agricultural value chain.