450-acre Songhai Cross River Initiative Debuts in Abi

From: Dianabasi Effiong, Calabar

 

An agro-based programme, expected to cover about 450 acres of land and make Abi Local Government Area the food basket of Cross River has kicked off in Itigidi.

The “Songhai Cross River Initiative (SCRI)” is hosted by three communities of Itigidi, Adadama and Annong in the council area.

An integrated World Class Centre for agric business and entrepreneurship, SCRI is also expected to be a centre of excellence for training, production, research, demonstration and development of sustainable agricultural practices.

No less than 100 youths from Cross River have so far been trained at the Songhai Farm, Porto Novo by the state Government to form the pilot employees for the farm.

The Project Accountant, Ekoma Christopher, told NAN in Itigidi that the project is an “integrated agricultural systems to make the area the food basket of Cross River’’.

According to him the four-phased project include the technological pack; the processing pack; the agricultural pack; and the service pack.

He said that the project which began in May this year had already harvested products from its market garden for the local market and would, in due course, produce for export.

Christopher said: “This is all about integrated agricultural systems. Gov. Liyel Imoke of Cross River called on Songhai to put up a prototype of what we have in Porto Novo, our project centre/regional headquarters, Benin Republic.

“In May 2013 we started putting up structures that you see here. It is a four-phased project. We have the Technological Pack; the processing pack; the Agricultural pack; and the Service Pack.

He said that the Agricultural pack combines primary production – crop production, animal production and market garden or what we consume or use from day to day.

“Every three months we are supposed to be having a regular harvest of the market garden. We have started this by harvesting sweet corn; cucumbers. The onions are also coming up. In crop production, we have the soya; there is the pineapple plantation, the orchard, which we will soon start – the agro forestry. These are all designed to make sure that we have food basket in Cross River.

“In animal production we have the quail house; free range – meant to breed the geese, the turkey to roam around. At the same time they will be domiciled in their houses within the farm just like we have in the local environment or residences. We also have the pen for pig production; we also have the abattoir to ensure that whatever meat that we have for the market can be slaughtered here”, he said.

Christopher also said that the Initiative’s technological pack combined local and modern technology to ensure what he called zero emission waste.

“That is to say there is no waste. We make use of everything that comes out of this place; we recycle them and put into use. The waste from animals will go into the farm – the rice farm, the corn farm, Soya farm and so on. We also have the aquaculture where concrete as well as earthen fish ponds are located, the earthen ponds are three. They are for large scale fish production. We have the feed mills. We have the processing pack where every harvest will be passed to tertiary production. We are also going to have the hotel, the restaurant and the service pack – something like the telecentre. In fact we want to create a village in Abi local government at the end of the project”, he said.

He said that the project was initiated to serve both local and export markets and provide employment for young people.

“When you look at the production of pigs, if the parent stock is 60 and you have 200 within three months these will multiply. In terms of numbers, the capacity of the Layers (Poultry) is about 6,000 and 10,000 Broilers, it is both for export and local. We have the hatchery for the fingerlings we will produce for aqua-culture. For the first batch we will get the fingerlings from our parent farm, or one of our farms in Abuja or Enugu. The Acreage or total land area we are looking at 200 acres of land in Itigidi, we also have 200 acres at Annong. At Adadama we also have about 50 acres,’’ Christopher said.

He said that by the first quarter of 2015 the project would run at full capacity notwithstanding foreseeable challenges.

“We were given four years to complete but we are looking at two years. We will complete by 2014 or latest first half of 2015. One of our challenges is the terrain. The topography, which is natural, required some level of control. We do not fight nature here but are trying to use nature. Cost of land is another challenge. We are also working with the Civil Society groups and consultants to get over this as well as youth restiveness. We are at the building stage and have not yet started employing but at this stage most of the workers here, about 80 per cent, are drawn from this local government area. The project is contracted to Songhai to build but apart from the major or management staff from Port Novo we make use of the local content”, he said

Mr Roland Bosa, project’s Team Leader, also told NAN that about 150 people would be employed directly by Songhai Cross River Initiative.

“We are expecting about 150 in direct employment as well as indirect employment most of who have been trained in Songhai Porto Novo in this farm. Our major challenge for now is not how to produce for export but to produce enough for local consumption before exploring the export markets”, Bosa said

Gov. Liyel Imoke of Cross River also spoke glowingly of the project: “So far we have trained about 100 graduates in Port Novo as the  first set of people that will be part of this project.

The whole idea is that this becomes the centre of activity but in each local government area we are going to have what we call out sourcing, where these young people who have been trained are able to get the seedling.

“This is not just a farm. It is integrated, where you start from the farm, primary production, from planting to processing to the market. The entire value chain can start here at minimal cost. For instance if you are thinking of plantain, plantain chips could be made here, packaged here and they will be sold from here. The same thing goes for the fruits, pineapple juice. Here they do not believe in waste, they also generate their own electricity from water hyacinth and wastes.

“The process, if we can scale it up from this part, will go a long way to address food insecurity, provide good product at inexpensive prices for our markets and create significant employment for thousands of young men and women. The ultimate cost of the project in the first stage will be about N400 million including all the training at Port Novo for about six months. The next phase, the processing, there will be additional funding for that and ultimately, we think that the yield from here will far exceed any expenditure that we have made in terms of employment opportunities, economic benefits. The whole idea is that everybody from these communities can benefit from it. It will also transform the way we do agriculture. It has tremendous economic benefits if it is well run.