Oil Palm Farmers In Edo State To Receive Training On Pest And Soil Fertility Management

To boost the oil palm value chain in the country, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) has partnered with the Nigerian Institute for Oil Palm Research (NIFOR) to train oil palm farmers in Edo State.

Speaking at the workshop held in Benin, the Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development, Muhammed Abubakar, said the farmers would be trained on pest and soil fertility management.

Abubakar noted that the oil palm value chain was among the commodity value chains being promoted by the ministry, stressing the need to build the capacity of stakeholders in the sector.

Represented by the Deputy Director of the ministry, Mr Chukwuemeka Ukattah, the minister said the goal of the training was to ensure that Nigeria becomes a leading producer of oil palm, globally.

“Some of the achievements recorded by the ministry in its bid to improve the oil palm value chain include the production of 180,000 improved tender-sprouted nuts by NIFOR”.

“This is to be distributed to oil palm farmers in the 27 oil palm producing states and it has established two equipped oil palm processing centres for the production of crude palm oil”.

“Other farm inputs procured to be distributed to farmers are palm nutcrackers and separators, oil palm chisels and motorised harvesters, among others,” he said.

Remarking, the State Director, Edo FMARD office, Mr Wellington Omoragbon, said the ministry had organised a series of capacity building and empowerment programmes along the value chains of yam, rice, cassava, potato, and cashew, among others.

Also, he said the ministry had provided agricultural infrastructure support services to farming communities in Edo in form of feeder roads, rural water supply, and solar street lights, which NIFOR benefited from.

In his address, the Executive Director, NIFOR, Dr Celestine Ikuenobe, urged the farmers to take advantage of the workshop to earn a better income. Ikuenobe, represented by a director, Dr Isona Gold, said that NIFOR was committed to repositioning the oil palm sector to be a very significant sector of the economy, providing employment and income.

Meanwhile, AgroNigeria gathered that FMARD also distributed 200 oil palm fruit harvesting chisels and 1000 litres of organic path-away fertiliser to the farmers during the training.