Oyo state government has said that all is set to host the maiden edition of her annual agriculture summit in October this year to enable the state showcase her agricultural prowess and assert herself as the a hub for agro-allied industry in Nigeria.
The Commissioner for Agriculture, Oyo State, Oyewole Oyewumi who disclosed this in a chat with members of the Nigerian Association of Agricultural Journalists (NAAJ) in Lagos recently said that the summit which would hold between the 10th and 11th of October, 2018 was being organized by the Government of Oyo state through the state’s Ministry of Agriculture in collaboration with the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and various other organizations.
Represented by the Senior Consultant, Oyo State Agriculture Investment Summit, Mr. John Delano, Oyewumi noted that the event which would hold at the IITA, Ibadan on the said date has as its theme: Transforming Oyo State Agriculture and Agro-Allied Industry: Private Sector Participation.
According to him,” Myself, the Commissioner and IITA and various other organizations including the Governor of Oyo State have looked at Oyo state as one of the big agricultural states in Nigeria. Oyo state has a track record and a history of agricultural prowess and excellency in agriculture, even as we speak, Oyo state is the poultry capital for the country, Oyo state is number one in cassava, number in cashew, it does a lot of maize and sorghum and various other crops which are important.
“What we thought is that it is time to get collaboration going between the government and the private sector on an ongoing basis and on a more formal basis. So, theme of the summit this year we are putting together called Oyo State Agriculture Investment Summit and attached to that will be an exhibition”.
He added that the idea of the summit was to bring the private sector into an alliance with what the state wanted to do even as he said that over the last two months, IITA had been putting together a policy document for Oyo State for the next five to twenty-five years so that it could integrate its plan into one which has short term, medium term and long term goals.
Going further, the Commissioner informed that Oyo state, as part of its drive to becoming a hub for agro-allied industry in the country, had actually earmarked about 250,000 hectares of land scattered around the state for the private sector that were coming into the state to develop and convert into agricultural use.
“So, all of this is all inclusive and the idea is to have an annual summit where all the stakeholders can come together and everybody can be on the same page when we are talking about agri-business enterprises, investment companies, finance companies, banks, the government itself various other stakeholders, of course the small holder farmers and then the likes of the federal government agencies that are tasked with de-risking the industry.
“So, it is very much a beginning rather than an end, the idea is that we will come together so that we will know what we want to achieve over the first five years and we will break it into yearly goals . The summit itself will be an annual ritual. The Venue is IITA Ibadan which is one of the foremost if not the foremost research institute for agriculture in Nigeria and West Africa. IITA has been involved in agriculture and in Oyo state for the past fifty years. Oyo state including Ibadan has about five agriculture based research institutes. So, all of these institutes are going to play a part in how Oyo state agriculture is transformed.
“The idea is that Oyo state becomes a hub for agro-allied industry so that proximity to Lagos will pay off and all the manufacturing that needs to be done that are of agro-allied nature should start to be stationed in Oyo state and in Ibadan”.
He continued,“Over the next few months or so, as we lead up to the event, we will unveil the policy document which the IITA has been working on in collaboration with the government. We will also start to unveil the speakers that we are expecting, the panelists, the organizations which are going to be involved.
“Needless to say some of them are some of the most notable in the country, Olams, Dangote farms, flour mills of course and various others that already have a stake in Oyo state and then others who are more international and who are prospecting looking at the likes of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, others like IFAD who are interested in everything that has to do with the rural areas, the World Bank, Africa Development Bank, DBN and various others like that.
” In a nutshell, this is being pushed by the government itself, of course it is using the Ministry of Agriculture to do that but the governor of Oyo state, Senator Abiola Ajimobi will be the host of this event. There will be one or two other governors from around the region who have interest in agriculture. But there could also be governors who would want to do business with Oyo state as well, Senator Bagudu of Kebbi state comes to mind, Taraba state also has an interest and so on and so forth”.
Photo: (L) National Chairman, Nigerian Association of Agricultural Journalists (NAAJ), Mr. Stanley Ihedigbo; Senior Consultant , Oyo State Agricultural Investment Summit, Mr. John Delano; Public Relation Consultant , Oyo State Agricultural Investment Summit, Ms. Precious Idaewor and Secretary NAAJ, Mr. Ayo Fadimu, during the Press conference for the forthcoming Oyo State Agricultural Investment Summit at NAAJ secretariat in Lagos.
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