By: SAEED TIJJANI
Recalled that few days ago, Kwara State Government launched its first ever 10-year Agric Transformation Plan, designed to ensure food security, generate employment opportunities, and reduce poverty rates.
In what we can term as a good course on track, Dr. Sonia Darracq, who is the French representative in West Africa, has recently described launching of the Kwara Agric plan as “the best possible strategic plan in terms of agribusiness development”.
In her statement, during her visit to Kwara State;
Darracq, who is the Regional Agricultural Counsellor for Benin, Cameroon, Ghana, Niger, Nigeria, and Togo at the French Embassy, said the Kwara Agric Plan goes deeply through all sectors and value chains, including the education and training aspects. From it, any potential investor certainly feels reassured and comforted that Kwara is an agribusiness friendly state.
She as well encourages investors to come and see by themselves.
She said plans are underway by French private companies to partner Kwara State government in different fields of agriculture - livestock, agricultural equipment and machinery and other value chains.
"As the business environment is safe in Kwara, some French companies are already willing to start building a win-win public-private-partnerships in areas related to livestock (veterinary, feeding, processing, logistics, etc); agricultural equipment and machinery for all value chains (processing, packaging, cold chain, etc.); irrigation systems: expansion (technical cooperation) and equipment; post harvest issues and agrologistic hubs,” she said.
"Developing a network of agro-logistic hubs could drastically decrease post-harvest losses, contribute to structuring agricultural sectors and improve food safety and security..
Darracq, who toured parts of the state in company of the Technical Assistant to the Governor on Agric Abdulquawiy Olododo, explained that the cooperation in Technical Agriculture Education between the French Network of Technical Agriculture Colleges and the similar institutions in Kwara, mainly ARMTI, will be strengthened.
She said the partnership will also involve several stakeholders within and outside the academic, including in the area of vocational trainings.
Darracq recalled that collaboration with Kwara State started in February 2020 when Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq attended the Paris International Agriculture Show.
Her words: "When the Governor visited the Paris International Agriculture Show in February 2020, we then had the opportunity to exchange ideas about the many agricultural sectors France and Kwara State may be interested in working together. But our activities were distracted by the critical consequences of the pandemic on a huge part of the population in Nigeria. However, working ways reorganised and reinvented, and when he recently visited the French Ambassador, His Excellency proposed to begin working on our cooperation in the agribusiness sector by a visit of the French Agriculture Counsellor to Kwara State."
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