Mike Omotosho |
Worried about 55 per cent importation of the total volume
of palm oil consumed in Nigeria, the Mike Omotosho Foundation has
established a N2 billion palm plantation in Kwara State.
Founder and initiator of the project, Dr. Mike Omotosho
stated this weekend in Abuja while briefing journalists ahead of the
forthcoming annual lecture of the foundation, themed; ‘Increased
Agricultural Productivity for Sustainable Economic Growth.’
Omotosho revealed that the His Imperial Majesty, Ooni of
Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, Ojaja II would give the keynote
address at the annual lecture which is coming up on Saturday, January 14, 2017.
Omotosho stated that the foundation aside from organising
annual lecture has a 15,000 hectares of farmland, out of which 300
hectares has been cultivated and presently being used as demonstration
farm.
“We also have an agricultural academy so people can come in and learn about agriculture. We want to use that as a pilot and then we can replicate the demonstration farm with the agricultural academy. So far, over 500 people have being trained and we are hoping we glare going to increase this to about 50,000 next year because it is still at the pilot stage,” he said.
According
to Omotosho, if Nigeria become Africa largest producer of palm, not
only would the country have enough to consume, but also to export.
“I
see a situation where we will begin to export palm between 5-6 years.
Just because we have 15,000 hectares of land does not mean we are not
planning to expand beyond that,” he stated.
While
explaining why he allotted 12,000 hectares of farmland to palm
plantation alone, he emphasised that; “the palm tree is one of the
agricultural commodity that every part of it is useful for something, is
just that the oil appears to be the one with highest economic value and
once you start a farm plantation.
“Subsequently,
once it begins to produce within three to five years it can continue
producing between 25 to 200 years, it is not like a cash crop maize
that you plant this year, you harvest next year and is gone. So, if
you truly wants something sustainable you have to be looking into the
future,” Omotosho said.
He
also revealed that the foundation would not just be producing the palm
and sending away, but it would also have mills of the farmland to
process the palm oil, stressing that within the next 5-7 years that the
foundation should be able to provide jobs for 15,000 people working on
the farm.
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