NALDA to establish integrated farm estate in Kogi

 The National Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA) is to establish an Integrated Farm Estate in Kogi for crop production and livestock production, processing and packaging.

The Executive Secretary of NALDA, Paul Ikonne made this known in a statement on Friday in Abuja.

He said the farm estate will create direct and indirect job opportunities for about 3,000 youths in the host community.

” The Farm Estate will be located on a 700 hectares land in Okwuha Obayin Village, in Ajaokuta Local Government Area of the state donated to NALDA by the government.

” The farm will focus mainly on livestock (Cattle, Goat, sheep and Poultry) and pasture production; it will have a cropping area with an irrigation farming system to enable all year round food production particularly maize.

”The NALDA farm estate will also serve as a bridge and safe haven for pastoralists relocating from these zones of the country thereby reducing farmers’/herders’ clashes,” he said.

Ikonne noted that the farm was mapped out in such a way that there will be no friction between farmers and herders as the pasture area on the farm would cater for the feed needs of the animals on the farm
and also be exported to other parts of the country.

Ikonne assured the community of President Muhammadu Buhari’s commitment to ease poverty in the country and make millionaires out of Nigerian youths in the rural areas through agriculture and Okwuha Obayin village is blessed to be part of the programme.

He added that the land clearing will begin soon and the first section of the farm estate will be commissioned by December 2021.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that on June 10, Ikonne, said the authority had identified and recovered various abandoned farm estates in no fewer than 21 states of the federation.

This, he said, followed the directive of President Muhammadu Buhari to the authority to recovery of all NALDA abandoned farm estates located across the country.

The farmlands were recovered in Gombe, Borno, Adamawa, Taraba, Niger, Kebbi, Oyo, Imo, Katsina, Lagos, Ekiti, Delta, Bauchi, Yobe, Kaduna, Benue, Kogi, Osun, Anambra, Akwa Ibom and Abia.

He said the achievements of the authority, one year after it was resuscitated by Buhari and domiciled under his supervision, the NALDA boss further assured that the president’s mandate to boost food security and create employment would be achieved.