In his welcome address, the
Chairman of the company, Mr. Ola Rosiji said his company currently engaged over
8,000 farmers located within Ogun and Oyo states, providing indirect employment
to more than 40,000 people. According to
him his company had earlier expanded its farm support services to farmers in
her bid to increase the income of farmers through the provision of agronomy packaged
practices, improved variety, seed planting, mechanization and harvesting
support. In addition toethanol, the plantwill produce carbon dioxide (CO2) used
in various industries such as the soft drinks Industry and starch which is used
in glue and glucose industries, he added.
He said: “Having pioneered the
development of the technology and know-how and having proven that cassava can
be used to produce ENA of international standard quality, we are now in the
process of developing other projects which will be located within the cassava belt.Our
aim is to reduce dependence on imported ENA with the resultant savings in
foreign exchange, creation of jobs and improvement in farmer’s income.”
Earlier the Minister of
Agriculture, Dr. AkinwumiAdesina(who was represented by the Ministry’s
Technical Adviser on cassava initiatives, MrsOluwatoyin Olatunji) praised the
initiative, noting that it is a record breaking event for the world’s largest
producer of cassava and a testimony of the success of the Federal Government
policy on cassava. He said: “Cassava is
a commodity in focus with value addition at five points including the
confectionery and pharmaceutical sectors and a massive job creator.
He regretted that before now though
the country was the largest producer of cassava globally it had no place in the
international market unlike a countrylike Thailand that controlled 84 per cent
of the global market even though it is the third largest producer. The minister
said the resultant effect isthe rapid growth of the Thailand’s economy to the
point that unemployment is merely 0.4 per cent unlike Nigeria which has a huge
unemployment figure.
Adesina noted that government
intervention incassava comes with different advantages such as the creation of jobs
for millions of Nigerians while at the same time growing the small and medium
scale enterprises (SMEs) engaged in that sector.
The Governor of Ogun State, Senator
Ibikunle Amosun said the nation can only record economic growth, sustainability
and security through initiatives such as this where a lot of people are gainfully employed and
farming made attractive because farmers know they have a ready market for their
products.
Governor Amosun further said
thatvalue addition to cassava will reduce the dependence on foreign exchange,
stressing that any nation that fails to develop her agricultural sector can
neither grow her economy nor her people. The Governor noted that in Malaysia
cassava has been put to 23 uses, which has led to the growth of the economy
making it one of the largest in Asia.
He encouraged the company not to
relent in her Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to the community in order
to ensure harmony and prosperity for all stakeholders and also encouraged
traditional rulers and communities to be ready to offer their land to credible
investors for value addition. At the end, they stand to benefit immensely.
He advised the federal
government to live up to her responsibilities by providing the needed infrastructure to
encourage industrialists to thrive while pledging the readiness of his
administration to continue to provide
the necessary infrastructure and enabling environment for industries to prosper.
