Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State has disclosed that the Egyptian government, under its Food Security Plan, has shown interest in the Agro Processing Zone located in the Gateway International Agro Cargo Airport, along Iperu-Ilishan Remo Road in the state.
The governor said the North African nation had signified interest to have farm plantations in the zone, plant crops, process the produce and also export the proceeds back to the home country.
Abiodun, who added that the representatives of the Egyptian Government would visit the state very soon and finalize the details of their investment, gave this disclosure during an interactive session with the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Ogun State chapter, in Abeokuta, at the weekend.
His words: “Last week I met with the National President of the Rice Farmers Association in Abuja, it is a good opportunity for me to inform you that he is working with a team of Egyptian farmers from the Egyptian government who have the policy of food security and they identified Ogun State as one of the states they will like to partner with.
“So on the 16th of this month, the representatives of the Egyptian government in agriculture will be coming to Ogun State.
“Their interest is the agro processing zone; they want to have farm plantation there, they want to plant, they want to process and they want to export back to Egypt under their Food Security Plan. They have done their research and were convinced that Ogun State is one of the states that is strategically located for them to invest in, to farm, to process and to export.”
While noting that his administration was poised to encourage foreign and local agricultural investors to partake in the out-grower scheme, where land will no longer be allocated to them but to local farmers and other interested parties in the state.
“What we are trying to encourage now is that every foreign or even local company that wants to farm, we’ve discouraged allocating land to them, we are no longer disposed to giving land to them, we will rather encourage them to do an out-grower scheme where we will give land to you and say whatever it is you want to do, go and teach them how to do it and then we can buy it from them so that we can use that to empower you.”