The Cross River State Governor, Professor Ben Ayade, has identified agriculture as the greatest challenge of the state.
To this end, the governor revealed plans by his administration to make the state a major exporter of agricultural and agro-allied products in the country.
“The greatest challenge for us as a state is agriculture,” Ayade said on Thursday when he received a South Korean delegation who paid him a visit at the Government House in Calabar, the state capital.
“Very recently as you all know, the Japanese have invented a technology which is now in full operation, using water as a source of energy to drive cars. This is very clear that our monolithic dependence on oil in years to come will be over,” he added.
Some of the products identified by the governor for cultivation, processing and export, include cocoa, rice, maize and banana, with over two million pieces of arable land already set aside for banana cultivation.
He said apart from the 100 thousand hectares of land already set aside for the cultivation of cocoa, another two million hectares of arable land has been acquired by the state for the cultivation of banana.
Highlighting the importance of banana, he said, “banana is such a strong crop for medicinal purpose and the demand of the crop is also very high.”
“Banana is also a very critical crop for exportation because it grows only in specific soil with a sub-tropical humid climate and this climate is only found in South America and Nigeria – specifically Enugu and Cross River states.”
The governor explained that the move was part of deliberate initiatives and strategic policy to permanently decouple the state from over-dependency on the Federal Government, thereby, becoming a major exporter of farm produce in the country.
“The export of food will always remain viable and this is where Cross River State comes in and I am aware that you paid visits to other states like Delta, Benue, but you have chosen Cross River State to partner us in this direction; Be rest assured that you have found the best berth,” he told the delegation.
Ayade revealed further that efforts were ongoing by the state government to replace oil wells with cocoa farms for the people of the state.
He said, “We have moved to a point in Cross River State that every man and woman will own at least a hectare of cocoa farm at his or her backyard, which will be their oil wells equivalence.”
