Heart and Capital Nigeria Limited has reinstated its commitment towards creating diverse opportunities through agriculture to create employment and wealth.
Umar Adelodun, cofounder and CEO of the company, who stated this at the official commissioning and unveiling of the firm’s logo recently, revealed that the company had trained over 4,000 youth agripreneurs on various agricultural value chains.
Adelodun stated that the company recently embarked on ‘Cassava Proxy Farm’ project to create jobs and help individuals diversify their income.
He added also that the initiative was in support of the Federal Government’s policy direction to reduce the country’s reliance on crude oil which is no longer reliable as its price has continued to dwindle over time, and to further support the United Nation’s sustainable development goals.
He noted that having realised agriculture’s potential of growing the economy, Heart and Capital was further committed to building wealth for incoming generation.
Speaking on the firm’s cashew processing project, he said: “We have over 200 hectares of cashew planted but we want to scale up production in such a way that our processing facilities, without outsourcing from anybody can sustain us for a while.”
“We are going into operational and technical partnership with partners in agric processing mill. We are strongly looking at value chain and processing,” he further said.
Adelodun identified infrastructural deficit as the major challenge and appealed to government for provision of crucial infrastructure to boost productivity and reduce production cost.
In his response, Kayode Alabi, deputy governor, Kwara State assured of his administration’s support in creating an enabling business environment while calling on the youths to embrace agriculture to ensure food security.
According to him, education and farming were the future and key to the development and progress of the country.
Alabi, however, charged youths to be determined, adding that the state government would support progressive initiatives aimed at taking the state to the next level with agriculture.
He stated that the state could feed the nation with its abundant human and natural resources, calling on the people to key into the various agricultural potentials in Kwara.
He commended Heart &Capital, imploring the company not to be discouraged as they would reap the fruits of their labour in due course.
SIKIRAT SHEHU, Ilorin
