By Thompson Yamput
The Federal Government on Saturday commissioned Agribusiness Incubation Centre (ABIC) in the Federal University Lokoja (FUL), Kogi, to boost food production and security in Nigeria.
Commissioning the project in Lokoja, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Dr. Ernest Umakhihe, said the focus of the centre included enhancing production capacity, value addition, quality control and standards.
He said it would also open access to local and international markets for agricultural produce.
He said: “The incubation centre is being established as a Special Centre of Excellence to support and promote food security in Nigeria, and to support youth and women empowerment as well as promote employment generation, wealth creation and poverty reduction.
“This will be through the development of viable agribusiness and entrepreneurship skills in different agricultural value chains across the country.
“The project is aimed at facilitating and attracting investments into the agricultural sector, ensuring survival and sustainability of agri-based businesses and increasing domestic food production and exports, ” he said.
The perm sec said that the centre would serve as practical knowledge hubs where best practical skills, processes and inputs could be acquired on particular commodities.
According to him, the centres will also produce young generation of successor farmers and agricultural entrepreneurs.
Umakhihe said such farmers could adapt new technologies and innovations across the segments of commodities enterprise/value chain of production, processing, storage and marketing.
“The centre is equipped to provide business basics through comprehensive training programmes along commodity value chains and business start-ups, including access to bank loans and other funds and guarantee programmes.
“The centre will support market research, linkage to strategic partners, access to investors and the development of business plans and business networking etc,”
He expressed satisfaction and appreciation of the support and cooperation of the vice chancellor, the academic and management staff of FUL for the successful completion of the centre.
Umakhihe also expressed the hope that the university would explore the opportunity offered by the centre and make the best use of it, to prove its support as a formidable institution in the government’s efforts to grow the nation’s economy, using the agricultural sector.
Responding, the FUL Vice Chancellor, Prof. Olayemi Akinwumi, thanked the Federal Government for setting up the centre.
Akinwumi pledged to ensure that the institution made good use of the opportunity to train the students, to make them to become big time agriculturalists that would contribute to the nation’s food production and security.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the minister also commissioned a six kilometres road constructed from the university’s Zoo to Lokoja-Okene Road. NAN
