Sterling Bank Plc, Nigeria’s leading commercial bank flagged off its premier edition of its Agriculture Summit Africa in 2018 with top government functionaries and thought leaders in the private sector in the agricultural sector of the African continent in attendance.

As the lender sets to host the 2020 edition, Revd. Unimniake Ugbe, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Cross River State in this interview enjoins every stakeholder in the sector to attend the summit with the readiness to learn and meet the kind of people they are looking for whether they are investors, consultants or for general information about latest developments in the global agricultural sector.

Revd. Unimniake Ugbe.

Could you please take us through what the state government has done for agriculture so far?

The state government has established some agro-allied industries in order to move the agricultural sector away from a mainly subsistence level to a business level. These industries include the cocoa processing factory at Ikom, rice processing factory at Ogoja as well as the rice seeds and seedling factory, poultry processing factory, noodles factory, and feed mill all located in Calabar.

The government is doing this with an intention of moving the agricultural produce away from production to a complete value chain of processing and marketing. There is also a separate ministry for commerce that markets the products from these factories.

Also, there are ongoing efforts to empower farmers so that the production of raw materials will be on the increase. The government is already making plans for a new cocoa project. The state government has already contributed a large expanse of land to a foreign investor to develop cocoa by way of sharing the land to small scale holders who will produce the cocoa and the foreign investor will offtake the cocoa pods.

It will reduce a load of processing and marketing from the farmers. The investor intends to develop a factory, that will process the cocoa pods into a wide range of marketable products, including; wine, juice, chocolate, etc. These are few, amongst the numerous programs of governments to improve the agricultural sector.

With your experience in public service, would you say Nigerian youths are really interested in the Agriculture sector?

Yes, they are, especially when they are sure that they can make a profit from it. There example of a young engineer who could not gain employment anywhere and has gone all out for farming. She already has a cassava farm somewhere and she is now looking for some empowerment so that she can increase the scale of her farming.

The youths want these opportunities, for instance, in a world bank agricultural project with only 1,700 slots, over 33,000 forms were collected with even more youths indicating interests. However, in contrast to crude methods of agriculture, used in the past, the youths are more attracted to mechanized systems of farming. They don’t have to undertake land clearing, sow the seeds, weed the farm, and harvest the crops manually as the older generations did, machines and chemicals have replaced manual labor in most cases.

That is why His Excellency, the Governor of the State, Prof. Ben Ayade, has invested a lot in acquiring a lot of machinery for land preparation and even harvesters for various produce. So, there’s an effort to encourage the youth that they can do agro business without really sweating it out. Like the governor used to say, you can wear a tie and drive your tractor. You can wear a tie, sit in an air-conditioned tractor and still be yourself as a university graduate

What is the major challenge facing the agriculture sector in Cross River State?

Finance is our main challenge. As we are talking about the youths now, many are ready to go out to the farm or to engage in any of the levels in the entire value chain. They are ready. But, there’s no level of the value chains that do require need money. If you want to go into marketing, you will need money to buy. If you want to go into production, the problem of money to get the land is also there. It is the same thing if you want to process the raw materials, to get the input and everything.

To maintain the farm, all those challenges are there. So, basically, the challenge is one of financing. We know that there are many outlets that are there for financing. We have the NIRSAL, we have the commercial banks, and we have the Central Bank of Nigeria rolling out the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme fund.

We are aware that the fund will enable smallholder farmers to procure different seeds, different crops, and all that is going on. But, you still find out that with all this going on, the flow of funds to those who are really in need is very slow. So, the challenge remains the issue of financing.

You must have attended several agriculture-related summits. How many have you attended in the last year or what has it been like for you attending those events?

Well, I have attended a few Agro related summits in the past one year, with the Sterling Bank summit as a prominent amongst many.

Kindly share your experience at the summit. What was it like for you?

The experience was worthwhile because of the volume of information that was available and then the experiences shared from those that have invested and succeeded in the Agricultural sector. Those were the major benefits.

Would you say your participation at last year’s event has in any way helped the ministry?

Yes, it helped us because it gave us the global view of what is happening and there is some specific information we got that was useful for decision making.

Looking at this year’s summit, if you were to attend, what will you be interested in, and to what extent do you think that would help your service to the state and the people?

If we can get financing which is what my focus would be in addition to getting to know the update here and there. We will be looking out for opportunities on financing because that is where our problem is. Since we lost our oil wells, Cross River State became the first from the bottom when it comes to federal allocations.

That is why even the things His Excellency is doing, we look at them as miracles. We keep wondering where the money is coming from to undertake all these projects because the financing of the state is in a bad shape as a result of the loss of oil wells to our sister state. So, that’s why if we see any investor coming in and he is serious about it and we know what he is bringing would be to the benefit to the state, we quickly open our arms to such an investor. Surely, I will join the Deal Room during the Summit.

In your experience, what do you have to say to those who are looking to grow their agriculture business, especially by attending the Summit?

I encourage such people to attend the Sterling Bank Agriculture Summit with the readiness to learn, to meet the kind of people they are looking for whether investors, consultants, government policy drivers or just getting general information.

So, every interested person should come whether it is the youth or those who are already involved in the agriculture business or those who want to come in or those who even want to observe. They are not too sure of what is happening whether they can invest or not. It is a big opportunity to come and learn and become part of it.

After all, the oil business is failing us and almost every other sector is failing. One sector that would not fail is the agriculture sector because we will always need food. So, everybody will want to produce something. So it is the sector to invest in.

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