Edo partners Saro AgroSciences to cultivate 5,000-hectare maize field

The Edo State Government has inaugurated 1,000 hectares of cleared field in Sobe farm settlement in Owan West Local Government Area for maize production in partnership with Saro AgroSciences Limited, which would provide technical support for the programme.


 Governor Obaseki displaying improved seeds


Speaking at the inauguration ceremony at the weekend, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, Governor of Edo State, said the mechanisation centres would be situated close to the planned 5,000–hectare maize field to enable the 1,000 beneficiaries to manage the five hectares that would be allocated to each of them effectively.

Obaseki noted that the maize cultivation, which could directly empower 200 agripreneurs to become millionaires, was part of his administration’s Accelerated Agriculture initiative to create jobs in the state.

Explaining the rationale for the initiative, the governor said “Today is the first step towards actualising the 200,000 jobs promised by my administration. We had an agribusiness workshop to brainstorm on the challenges in our agriculture sector and we discovered that land preparation was a major challenge in the state. This initiative is to make land preparation easy via mechanisation for our farmers.”

, Mr Anthony Aibor, secretary to Sobe Farm Settlement Cooperative, commended the governor for the initiative and appealed for help to tackle infrastructure decay and the scourge of herdsmen in the community.



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