Can You Believe What Has Been Killing Agri Business In A’bom State?

Akwa Ibom is one of the states in the country with huge potentials to transform into an industrial marvel and economic giant?

Not just by exploiting oil deposits, but by maximising the potentials provided her naturally by agriculture, but do you know why these potentials have been locked down in the state?

Basically poor policy making and the absence of the needed infrastructure.

These points  mooted over and again had been reiterated by an expert in the business, the  Executive Director, El-kanis & Partners, Mr Moses Akpan.

Akpan who took the stage during the first stakeholders meeting of Agribusiness Enterprise Development Programme (AEDP), a joint partnership programme of Faculty of Agriculture, University of Uyo and the El-kanis & Partners held in Uyo on Friday minced no words but hit the nail on the head.

He said that while poor infrastructure hinders transportation of goods, preservation and expansion, policy makers have not carried out enough advocacy for agribusiness to thrive in the country.

But then, he did not limit the problem to the state alone, when he declared: “The problem we have in this country is lack of advocacy for agricbusiness. In Nigeria, those benefitting from agricbusiness are not the actual farmers.

“In agric sector, higher academic attainment is not necessary but interpreting the policy to others. The younger generation should be encouraged into agriculture.

“AEDP will be a systematic training process, through which individual will gain agribusiness knowledge, develop skill by instructions and practical activities that will result in improved agribusiness performance,” he said.

As part of the panacea, he advised farmers on the importance of building a social network to help one another and that the way to do this was to utilise the social media , which would not only unite them but attract prospective customers and clients.

Others who spoke up on the challenges were The Head, Department Food Science and Technology, University of Uyo, Dr Aniekpeno Elijah and the Managing Director of El-Kanis & Partners, Mr Ekanikpong Ben .

Mr Ekanikpong Ben, said the essence of the forum, was to acquaint stakeholders with the company’s innocations and how they could leverage from it to advance the courses.

He said the choice of faculty of agriculture as parther was in the realization that this would help scale up impact through the implementation of AEDP.

On the other hand,  Dr Aniekpeno Elijah, identified Biotechnology Genetically Modified Organism(GMO) as one of the globally approved ways to increase farm yields.