Cross River State Governor, Bassey Otu, has inaugurated the cultivation of 2,000 hectares of commercial maize cultivation in Odukpani Local Government Area through the state government’s Project Grow Initiative.
Performing the inauguration, Otu said his plan was to help Cross River farmers increase their revenue over middlemen who bought off their produce and sold at a higher prices without going through the pains of the farmers.
The Tide’s reports that Project Grow is a market driven initiative aimed at stimulating private sector investment in key agricultural value chains such as maize, rice, cassava, aquaculture and animal fodder.
Represented by Mrs. Glory Effiong, Accountant General of the state, the governor said the initiative was designed to curb food insecurity and create sustainable economy in the state by having farmers cultivate and companies like Flour Mills off-take.
He said the project was a testament to what resilience could achieve, as the occasion was symbolic to celebrate the commencement of mechanical planting of maize over a commercial area of 2,000 hectares.
“It is expected that after six years, this project will allow the market players in each of the value chain to understand themselves and engage independently while bringing our people into the money system to tackle multidimensional poverty.
“It is my dream that every resident of Cross River will live above poverty line because the Nigerian economy has shown a wide gap between the rich and the poor but this initiative aims to bridge it”, he said.
The Director of Project Grow, Mr Dennis Ikpali, said in the past, farmers in the state planted maize at subsistence level but Project Grow was helping the them commercialise the whole process by cultivating 2,000 hectares of land.
Ikpali said the maize acquired by Project Grow was early maturing, high yielding, disease and drought resistant with the capacity of producing four tons of maize per hectare.
“This means that within four months of planting, the 2,000 hectares of land has the capacity to generate 8,000 tons of maize.
“And by market computation, where a ton of maize is N600,000, we are looking at 10 to N12 billion income flowing through the system”, he said.
One of the beneficiaries, Mrs. Mary Ayi, who was given a hectare, said she used to plant cassava but was ready to go into commercial cultivation of maize because of its shorter duration.
She added that she would plough back whatever she got to enlarge her farm.
Another indigene of Odukpani, Nsa Okon, said he was quite satisfied with the implementation process of Project Grow urging those yet to receive their portions to be patient as the implementation was in phases.
The source also reports that for effective cultivation of the land, each farmer would receive N1 million loan from partner commercial banks and upon harvesting, the maize would be off-taken by Flour Mills Nigeria, another key partner of the project.