Cross River To Establish 2000 Hectares Of Farm Settlements In Boki & Obubra

EMMANUEL ULAYI

Determined to bring back the glorious days when agriculture was the main stabilizing sector and stay of the defunct Eastern Region and Nigeria as a whole, modalities are on top gear by the Cross River Government to establish Farm Settlements in the state.

To this end the State Governor, Sen. Prof Ben Ayade, has set up a Land Acquisition Committee to acquire 2000 hectares of land in two non-contiguous Local Government Areas of Central Senatorial district for that purpose.

The immediate past Commissioner for Works, and Chairman of the Committee, Hon. Engineer Dane Osim -Asu, who disclosed this in Calabar on Thursday, revealed that the committee has already identified Boki and Obubra as the two LGAs that will play host to the new farm settlements programme of the Ayade administration.

He explained that the committee started its activities by visiting Yakurr, Obubra, Ikom and Boki LGAs to assess the areas and has settled for Boki and Obubra LGAs of the state for the programme.

The Land Acquisition Committee Chairman for the Farm Settlement programme, said that the projects are targeted at empowering the people of the immediate catchment areas and the people of Cross River State as a whole.

He further disclosed that the projects will not only empower the people financially but also technically as those who will work in the farm settlements will be expose to new knowledge and modern means and methods of farming.

It would be recalled that defunct Eastern Nigeria Development Cooperation, (ENDC) had established this type of ambitious agro expansionist programmes that empowered and enabled the then South-Eastern State and other states that came out of the former Eastern region to developed their agricultural potentials in the areas of cocoa, cashew, Cotton, oil Palm and cassava , as well as farm reserves.