The Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development, Sen. Heineken Lokpobiri, has distributed improved varieties of cassava stem and yam seedlings to farmers in Bayelsa.
Lokpobirii distributed the farm inputs developed by the West Africa Agricultural Productivity Programme (WAAPP-Nigeria), on Friday.
According to him, the varieties are disease resistant and high yielding.
He urged youths in the Niger-Delta region to shun violence, pipeline vandalism and return to agriculture.
The minister said destroying oil pipelines was destroying the economy and also destroying the environment and arable lands for agricultural practices.
Lopkobiri said the future of the Niger-Delta region was not in oil but in agriculture, saying that the profit in agribusiness was much more than that of oil businesses.
The minister assured farmers in the state of Federal Government’s commitment to ensuring access to finance, input, insurances, technologies, machineries and market.
He urged the people of the region to take advantage of government programmes to become agro millionaires and live a comfortable life.
Lokpobiri also said he would be returning to the state in a couple of months to start up his own farm as a way to encourage youths to produce food for export.
In his remark, the Acting National Coordinator of WAAPP-Nigeria, Mr James Apochi, said the programme sponsored by the World Bank was being implemented in all ECOWAS member countries.
Apochi said the objective of WAAPP was to develop technologies through research, disseminate it and build capacities of farmers for adoption for increase productivity
He said the programme had developed high yielding varieties in the area of aquaculture, tuber crops like cassava and yams, cereal crops like rice, beans and sorghum for farmers.
The coordinator said the programme had seen the zeal and was ready to support government drive to promote agriculture in the state.
Apochi said WAAPP-Nigeria was partnering with 15 Agricultural Research Institutes, 11 Federal Colleges of Agriculture and 14 Federal Universities to achieve its aims and objectives.
He said WAAPP had provided improved variety of fingerlings which grows to table size within four months and had developed fish feeds that could compete favourably with imported feeds.
In the area of value addition, Apochi said WAAPP-Nigeria had developed smoking kiln of various versions that could completely dry fish in eight hours.
The coordinator said that the aim of WAAPP-Nigeria was to reach one million Nigerians but it had so far reached 1.8 million farmers across the country.
“We look forward to a situation where, when next we come together like this, Bayelsa farmers can tell us their experiences on yield before and after accepting the improved technology from WAAPP,’’ he said.
Also, the President of Ijaw Youth Council, Mr Udengs Eradiri, said agriculture in Nigeria could not be complete without adequately recognising the role of the Niger-Delta region.
Eradiri said the region had always been blackmailed and erroneously said not to have farmers which was not true.
He announced that the council would organise a food fair in December to showcase agriculture produce in the state.
He urged the government and other supporting agencies to provide processing and storage facilities and guarantee market rather than giving loans to portfolio farmers.
Eradiri said agriculture was the sector that would surely solve the crisis in the Niger-Delta and indeed the entire country.