Ibrahim Oyewale in Lokoja
Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello has restated the commitment of his administration to continue to give priority to agricultural sector in the state, noting that agricultural value chain system will always boost food production in Nigeria.
Governor Bello, who disclosed this while speaking at official presentation of 39 transportation facilities to 87 marking groups to ease movement of farm produce across the three Senatorial District of Kogi State in Lokoja yesterday.
Bello, who was represented by the Deputy Governor, ,Edward David Onoja formally handed over the facilities to the beneficiaries congratulated them for the rare opportunities.
The governor urged them to project 12 years from now and see what they can achieve with the support given to them by the APPEALS project as it is meant to take them to the next level.
Bello expressed gratitude to the APPEALS project in the state led by the State Project Coordinator, Dr Sanni Abdullahi Ozomata for transforming the agricultural sector of the state, recalled the support facilitated by the project across the segments of production, processing and marketing along with the Women and Youth Empowerment Programme (WYEP,) noting that great value has been added to the Agricultural sector of the state.
In his remarks, Ozomata said a bottom-top approach where beneficiaries decide the type of support they wanted was adopted to facilitate the required support.
He said that having facilitated support for those in production and processing, it was the turn of the food marketers in the state to be supported to add value to the state’s food supply chain.
A total of 1,442 marketers drawn from the 87 marketing groups who were qualified from the series of identification process as spelt out by the project, are expected to jointly utilize the facilities for the benefit of all group members.
