By Dansu Peter
The 1st annual international seminar on Comprehensive Local Agricultural Plan C-PLAN will hold in Abuja on October 26.
The seminar among other things aims at bringing out a workable blueprint to boost the agricultural sector.
Dr. Tanciy Joshi, Project Head, C-LAP, who addressed a press briefing in Abuja, said C-LAP is an integrated and participatory action plan for the development of LGAs in agriculture and allied sectors and is meant to prepare a Comprehensive Local Agriculture Plan (C-LAP) through participatory process involving various organizations and stakeholders.
He said it also establishes linkages with the required institutional support services, like credit, technology transfer, ICT, research and evolve an action plan for achieving sustainable agricultural growth with food security and cropping system that will improve farmers’ income.
Prof. Mohammad Auwal Hussaini, a member of the local organizing committee, also said that C-LAP will also lead to the creation of a mega food park for agricultural processing in each state, a network of structured farmer's market in each LGA for the sale of farm produce and a branded grocery retail chain that will be franchised across the country.
According to him, the ultimate aim of ALGON is to take this mammoth agricultural enterprise to the Capital Market in 5 years and said the plan which has since begun to show signs of fruitfulness involves the 774 LGAs in the 36 States of the federation for the five year period.
“The partner in the initiative, C-LAP on its part assesses current agricultural potential in each LGA by understanding its production patterns, marketing and other factors that will either constrain or provide opportunities for future growth of agriculture and advice ALGON based on that”.
He said realizing the importance of involving the grassroots, the Nigeria Governors Forum under the leadership of the Governor of Zamfara State, Abdulazzez Yari has keyed into initiative and have lent their support to the project and this has gone a long way to drive the initiative to the point where it is able to impact positively on the economy.
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