By Archibong Jeremiah
Professor Egrinya Eneji, Cross River State Commissioner of Agriculture has said that by the time he lives office, “The State will be exporting rice, banana, sugar cane and other products steadily to the outside world.”
The Professor of Agronomy who spoke in an exclusive interview with CrossRiverWatch, further stated that by exporting the aforementioned commodities to Europe and other parts of the world, “We will be able to reap a lot of economic benefits to sustain the State’s economy and not necessarily depending on the oil economy.”
On the issue of bad rural roads constituting an impediment to his plans, Eneji maintained that the super highway will complement. His words: “Everything is planned in synergy with what government has in stock to change the economic value of the State. We believe that the super highway will complement the agricultural production we envisage.
“In terms of evacuation, the deep sea port is already there and that gives us the independent opportunity to export our agricultural produce and when you add the aggregate economic benefit from all these that will make us less dependent on the federation account,” he maintained.
Talking on the government’s strides so far, the Commissioner revealed that, “The key programs and projects now is the partnership with foreign investors, we already have successful partnership for rice, banana and rice because in rice we have 2-3 worthy partners and the good thing is that they are coming with about ninety percent funding needed while the State is contributing ten percent in equity mostly, land and infrastructure, with that I think we can see the outlook in terms of rice production, we are doing same for banana and will soon do same for cocoa.”
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