Ebonyi Tasks Cooperatives On Food Sufficiency

Ebonyi State Commissioner for Agriculture and Natural Resources, Chief Romanus Nwasum, has called on agricultural cooperatives to contribute to the efforts of achieving food sufficiency in the country.

Nwasum who made the call in Abakaliki in his speech on this year’s World Food Day stressed the need for agricultural cooperatives to promote food security because of the looming threat of food scarcity facing the country as a result of the devastating floods which ravaged several states.

“Several farmlands and other agricultural facilities were washed away by the floods. Concerted efforts should, therefore, be made by all stakeholders to mitigate its effects on the agricultural sector.

“The state government will assist in this regard through the provision of farm inputs and the promotion of dry-season farming, among other incentives.

“Agricultural cooperatives should help in this direction by supporting the government’s efforts to achieve agricultural transformation and food security,” he said.

Nwasum, who described the theme of this year’s World Food Day “Agricultural Cooperatives: Key to Feeding the World’’  as apt, underscored the pivotal role of agricultural cooperatives in improving food security.

“The theme corroborates the popular adage: ‘strength is power’, which implies working together to achieve a common goal.

“This spirit, which makes our farmers assist each other in their various farm works, is mostly needed in these precarious times to ensure abundant food production and supply,” he said.

He stressed that the “cooperative spirit’’ propelled the state government to develop three rice clusters in the three senatorial zones of the state.

“These clusters will engender cooperative attitude among rice producers and processors and this will ultimately lead to increased availability of the produce by pooling resources together.

“The government he said, has also keyed into the Agricultural Transformation Agenda of the Federal Government, which is aimed at addressing the salient issues of food security, employment generation and wealth creation,”.

The commissioner said that the state government’s achievements in the agricultural sector included the development and production of the first-ever documented State Agricultural Policy, as well as the sponsorship of the training of 75 youths at Songhai Farms, Benin Republic.