This was disclosed by the Managing Director, Santuscom Agro Hub, Ofana Paul, at a media briefing ahead of the launch in Abuja, while explaining essence of establishing the park.
According to Paul the agro park by his company is to address youth unemployment and also to make Nigeria a leading agribusiness country in Africa through massive exportation of varieties of agricultural commodities, which he also made known that countries in West and Central Africa are demanding rice and other commodities from Nigeria, particularly from Santuscom Agro Hub.
Some of the products to be produced in the park include Ogoja, pure groundnut oil, Ogoja rice, Ogoja plantain flour, Ogoja palm oil, Ogoja tomato, Ogoja bean flour, Ogoja yam flour, and Ogoja potato.
The company is an indigenous farming, food processing and packaging firm established over two years ago and is based in Ogoja, Ogoja Local Government Area of Cross River State.
He said: “We have capacity due to the huge investment on ground, which we have established a massive Santuscom Agro Park with private investment, and this park will commence food processing, production, packing and marketing. We also will train young agropreneurs.
According to him they have a 150 hectare of rice farm running all year round with irrigation facility with enough paddy to support production, and also expressed optimism that with what they have will be able to meet up the production capacity including support of government that which will enable them to export rice to other parts of West Africa. He also added that all raw materials are sourced locally.
Meanwhile, he stated that the park after the launch will provide jobs for 5, 000 young people, where they will also be trained in their chosen area of agribusiness, which a hectare of land will be given to youths who are ready for agribusiness. He added that all investments will be insured under federal government’s agric insurance scheme.
