Boost for Edo farmers as NRCRI embarks on five day seminar

Respite is here for famers in Esan North East and Esan South East Local Government Areas of Edo State as Sergius Oseasochie Ogun, a member of the National Assembly, in association with SOOF, have organised a five day seminar which kicked-off on July 27, at 9am, at St Benedict Catholic Social Centre, Ubiaja, Edo State. 

Tagged Root Crops in industry: Sustainable uptake of edible roots crops as industrial raw materials in Esan land in food, confectionary and bakery industries, the seminar, which has as resource persons, officials of the National Root & Crop Research Institute (NRCRI) Umudike, Abia State, will train farmers on the use of cocoa yam and high yield cassava stems among others.

While making his comments, Ogun said: “Today we are going to be having training for farmers and the recourse people are coming from the National Root & Crop Research Institute, Umudike, and for the whole week (Monday to Friday), they are going to be training farmers on the use of cassava and cocoa yam. We are talking about high yield cassava stems which they will make available to the farmers after the training.”

On the reasons why he decided to embark on the project, Ogun  continued: “Almost every forth night there is a bus load of youths leaving for Europe through the desert in search of greener pastures and most of them die in transit so all this is geared towards stopping that trend.

“The idea is to set up something for the cooperatives and create wealth but my real target is actually the youths. If in the next one year they can see what is happening to the farmers and the cooperatives, we shall attract a lot of youths. We are talking about high yield cassava which has awesome potentials.”

He explained that Glucose syrup which is used in the confectionary industry is costing Nigeria a lot of foreign exchange. We import it to the tune of N2billion annually. Meanwhile, we have the potential to manufacture it locally. With this project we won’t be able to service the market but it is a starting point.

“Bakers also don’t have enough flour so they can also use cassava to bake. As soon as the project begins to run, we will get land and build a farm village for the youths and assist them with tractors. We can make the agricultural sector as glamorous as Oil and Gas,” Ogun added.