Foreign Missions Ready For Agritech Nigeria Osun 2018

TAIWO ADELU

L-R: Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Security, State of Osun, Mr. Adekunle Ige, Director, Foreign Trade and Investment Division of Ministry of Foreign Affairs,, Mr Adekunle Ogunsanya, Special Adviser on Agric to Governor of State of Osun, Mr Remi Kolajo and GM, Business Development and Strategic Planning Unit, Sifax Group during a meeting of Agritech Nigeria Osun 2018 Team with accredited foreign Ambassadors and High Commissioners in Abuja recently.

Accredited foreign missions in Nigeria has expressed their support for the first-ever agro technology exhibition and conference tagged Agritech Nigeria Osun which holds in Osun State from 20-22 November, 2018.
A meeting, facilitated by the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was held inside Rotunda Hall of the Ministry in Abuja. The meeting enabled the State Government of Osun to have discussions and market the agricultural exhibition and conference to various diplomats in Abuja.

The Ambassadors and High Commissioners who attended the meeting agreed to share ideas with the Federal Government of Nigeria and Osun State on how to bring technology into the Nigerian agricultural sector.
The Governor of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, who was represented by the Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Security, Mr. Adekunle Ige, solicited the support of all accredited Ambassadors and High Commissioners in the country to assist to develop agriculture in the state through the Agritech Nigeria Osun 2018 event.

According to the Governor, “the state wants to take painstaking and pacesetting steps; leading other states in the country in taking agriculture out of the rhetoric of crude ways of farming by introducing modern agro technology.
“Agritech Nigeria Osun 2018 will be the biggest gathering of stakeholders in the agricultural sector ever held in Nigeria. This is an event we hope that will help draw our youths to agriculture at a period the Federal Government of Nigeria is diversifying the economy from reliance on oil to agriculture,” Aregbesola said.

The Acting High Commissioner of South Africa, Ambassador Bobby Moroe, said that through the Agritech Nigeria event, his country will want to open to Nigerians the fact that agriculture can be the mainstream of the economy.
“For us in South Africa, we will mobilise all the agencies associated with agriculture to the event. It is important for us to participate so that we can share ideas, expertise and technical capabilities of South Africa during the event.
“We are also looking forward to the environment in which agriculture can be fashionable in the context of bilateral relationship between the two countries because agriculture falls among the back bones of the South African economy,” Moroe said.

General Manager, Business Development Strategy, SIFAX Group of Companies, Mr. Saheed Lasisi, said that the event will open up Nigeria’s economy and motivate many Nigerians to take into agriculture.  He added that his company will be responsible for the logistics arrangement both outside and inside the country before, during and after the event.
Agritech Nigeria Osun 2018, the first Nigeria’s largest Exhibition and Conference on agriculture, farm machineries, dairy, poultry, water technology, livestock equipment, agriculture processing technologies and environmental control, is being organised by the State Government of Osun, Fesco Agalu Enterprises Nigeria Limited, Kenes Exhibition and SIFAX Group of Companies.
Participants of about 500,000 are expected during the three-day event in Osogbo in November this year.