Cross River To Commence Banana Export Soon- Ayade

As part of strategy aimed at turning the state’s economy around, Cross River government will soon commence the export of its ‘grand nain’ specie of banana to Europe.
Prof. Ben Ayade, Cross River governor, stated this when he paid an unscheduled visit to the 105-hectares banana plantation in Odukpani local government area of the state.
Ayade said, “It is very exciting to see the deep seaport project giving birth to all of these ideas. You cannot build a seaport without planning the outbound cargo, which is the mistake other ports suffer from.”
He noted that “we expect that the Prof. Ben Ayade agro-based industry which is the focus of President Buhari administration that I have keyed in will focus on finding agricultural products that we will be exporting.”
“The zero oil roadmap is very clear to us that indeed in the next few years, oil will be a thing of the past, so for us to move into agriculture, we have to go into the most sophisticated technology, hence our partnership with San Carlos of Mexico,” the governor posited.
Hinting that the first harvest is expected in May this year while the commercial export harvest will be in 2019, Ayade explained that, “if we must grow agriculture, we must make sure we take it away from subsistence farming, ensuring that those farming don’t do so in agony, pain, hunger and melancholy, but follow the latest trend which is mechanised and technology driven.”
On the level of sophistication of the farm, he intimated that “we have the cable train running all-round, so with the press of a button, bananas go through the plant, processed, packaged and exported to Germany and other countries. It will provide the sufficient out-bound cargo from our deep seaport, that way, we don’t have a situation where ships come into Nigeria and after discharging they have nothing to take back.”
Giving insight into the employment opportunities provided by the farm, the elated governor said: “I am impressed with the number of young people that are working here, these are people that would have been on the street; more than 1,000 young people are engaged already. After Christmas, the next cultivation will start and that will bring another 1,000 young men who will be doing the debushing and land clearing.”
In their separate remarks, Cobus Schlcbusch, the Operations Manager and Martins Cruz, the Farm Manager, disclosed that the plantation will use a combination of Mexico and Costa Rica technology in supplying to local markets as well as exporting to other countries.
According to them, “the banana bunches will be between 35 and 40 kg,” even as personnel working in the plant will be trained to meet the requirements expected of perfect and packaged products for export.”
They added that “The parental seedlings from Mexico and Costa Rica remain unique and can resist crop-related diseases in Nigeria.”