By Mike Ebuka 

The situation of Enugu State as regard food security can be likened to a man who lives at the bank of a river, but washes his hands with spittle.  Enugu is so blessed with rich, arable lands and wonderful climate to grow foods that could serve the entire South East and equally export, but its citizens has been reduced to a net importer of foods even as they rely  also on agricultural produce from the North, in which majority of those foods can be home-grown 

Today, Nigeria places much reliance on a war-torn country like  Ukraine for the supply of wheat in form of flour. This is the reason the price of bread and other of its related commodities have been soaring higher.  Ukraine, as pathetic as it was for Nigeria promised 125 tones  of maize and wheat in humanitarian aid for Nigeria and few other countries. It's indeed laughable and pitiful especially when we have the wherewithal to be the ones rendering such humanitarian assistance to the embattled country and other poor countries. Enugu State alone, if proper investments are made in agriculture can help the country in numerous kinds of food production. 

Growing up in the agrarian council of Uzo-Uwani LGA, I got to know an area with a landmass  of over 7000 hectares of land with a diversion dam and 15-kilometre irrigation canal that enables all-season farming called Adarice Farm.  Adarice Farms is unarguably the most eloquent showcase of Enugu state’s prowess in rice cultivation. Over the years, however, the production output of this vast farm estate declined to such an extent that its potential was mostly spoken of only in regard to its past glory.  At a point, rice cultivation took place on barely 40% of the land available for farming. Indeed, Adarice Farms was a fitting metaphor for how agriculture – once the mainstay of Nigeria’s economy – was displaced of its enviable stand and contribution to the Gross Domestic Product  by the intoxicating and mouth-watering flow of oil money, losing the focus of government in agriculture and leading to its collapse of infrastructures and neglecting of farmers who now resort to self-help as their output becomes meagre and disencouraging. 

But, it seems the glory of Adarice and Enugu as a state known for its  numerous agricultural potentials is on its restoration process as the current governor of Enugu State, Barr. Peter Mbah is keen in transforming the state's agricultural sector with programmes which will be linked to other development programmes in productive infrastructure, human capital development and others with greater focus on boosting agricultural productivity, creating employment for youths and women of Enugu State, significantly increasing the percentage contribution of the agriculture sector to our GDP; and ultimately achieving zero hunger in Enugu State. 

Mbah has vowed to return Enugu back to a preeminent position as a leading producer of rice and other food crops, hence the ongoing establishment of Special Agro-Industrialisation Processing Zones (SAPZs) in each Senatorial Zone of the state which will include catchment power sources, integrated rural infrastructure - roads, ICT, water and sanitation and others to facilitate access to improved technologies, ensuring high yielding seeds, fertilizer, machinery, processing and other logistics equipment. All these are to ensure that Enugu turns into a food-basket for Nigeria and becomes a hub for export of agricultural produce. 

In addition, Mbah led administration is hellbent on encouraging private investment across the various areas of intensive livestock farming on piggery, poultry and egg production, small ruminant production and fish production. These lines of animal production would be enhanced with government assistance in the areas of technical assistance, agricultural extension services, introduction of improved hybrids of livestock to enhance feed conversion, disease resistance, speed of growth.

With the moves so far made by the Enugu State Ministry of Agriculture and Agro Industrialisation ably led by a trained and dogged Agriculturist, Mr. Patrick Ubru, one will then agree that Dr. Mbah is not just talking about agricultural revolution in Enugu, but also agro-allied industrialization that transcends production to fully exploiting the economic gains in the value chain like processing, packaging, logistics, and marketing.

As Mbah keeps his eyes on the plough, ensuring that there is an evidence of agricultural renaissance in the state, Ndi Enugu are waiting for an opportunity to exploit the full agricultural potentials and leave the feeding bottles of the federalism syndrome.

Mike Ebuka Okoro writes from Uzo-Uwani