‘We have 2m coconut palm plantations’

The Akwa Ibom State government says it has taken steps to address the dwindling oil revenue by investing massively in agriculture.

The state Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Charles Udoh, stated this during a courtesy visit to the management of Media Trust Ltd, publishers of Daily Trust titles recently at the organization’s corporate headquarters in Abuja.

“We looked around our neigbourhood, there is no coconut refinery and somebody would ask why coconut refinery and we will say look, Malaysians came to Nigeria, bought some palm oil seedlings, today, Malaysia exports all kinds of palm produce to the rest of the world,” he said.

Udoh also said that coconut is a viable opportunity which the state seeks to explore in order to penetrate the export market, adding that the state has concluded plans to also establish a coconut refinery.

“Today we have two million coconut palm plantations. When they approach maturity, we would kick-start a coconut refinery. The idea is to maximally extract the benefits from coconut and push those things into the markets and maybe get to a point where we can export,” he said.

The commissioner also stated that the state government has cultivated over 450 hectares of cassava farms across various locations.

He said in six months, government the the has last state also distributed fertiliser and seed/seedlings free to all those interested in farming, noting that the idea was to encourage people to go into agriculture in the state.

On rice farming, Udoh said rice farms are springing up everywhere in the state.

The state also has poultry hatcheries in various locations producing about 250,000 chicks daily.

On tomato, he said the state also harvested its first batch of the produce from its pilot tomato project in the state, adding that the government was ready to take every opportunity in agriculture.