Edo partners Indonesia to boost agriculture in the state

The Edo State Government is partnering with Indonesia in a bid to boost the state’s agricultural sector and reposition the state as the oil palm capital of Nigeria.

The State Governor, Godwin Obaseki who stated this while on a visit to the Indonesian Oil Palm Research Institute in Medan, Indonesia, noted that his administration was keen on diversifying the economy of the state by exploring the potentials of its oil palm industry.

“With the present pace of research in the agricultural sector, oil palm can replace crude oil as a major source of food, industrial materials and energy,” he said.

Obaseki noted that discussions were in progress to develop a plan to make the oil palm sector in the state commercially viable, adding that the visit would explore the possibility of reaching agreements with the Indonesian government towards the development of the oil palm sector in the state.

He said the choice of Indonesia was necessitated by that country’s giant strides in agriculture, particularly her position as a global leader in palm oil export, only followed closely by Malaysia which came to the Nigerian Institute for Oil Palm Research (NIFOR), Benin City to collect oil palm seedlings years ago.

Indonesia’s oil palm production figure stood at 33.5 million tonnes in 2014 and the product accounts for 11 per cent of the country’s $5.7billion export earnings.

The Governor gave an assurance that the visit would help develop the state’s agricultural sector to create jobs, produce raw materials for local industries, produce for export and produce time- tested research approaches to strengthen institutes like NIFOR and the College of Agriculture in Iguoriakhi, which is being repositioned to support the sector in the state.

The Indonesian research institute is made up of an oil palm plantation, processing plant, laboratories, nursery and oil palm refining facility.

The governor, who is accompanied by the Commissioner for Wealth Creation, Cooperatives and Employment, Hon. Emmanuel Usoh, and the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Kadiri Bashiru, said Indonesia is currently the largest exporter of palm oil in the world and agricultural sector is the country’s most valuable export sector.

The agricultural sector of Indonesia accounted for 32 per cent of the total labour force in 2016 and in 2013, the sector’s contribution to national Gross Domestic Product was 14.43 percent.