Abia State Governor, Alex Otti, has launched the Abia State Farmers Support Program, a major agricultural intervention aimed at empowering 18,634 farmers across the state’s 17 local government areas with improved farm inputs.
Speaking at the flag-off ceremony on Friday at the Umuahia Township Stadium, Otti said the initiative underscores his administration’s commitment to enhancing food security, creating employment opportunities and stimulating economic growth through agriculture.
He explained that beneficiaries were selected through a comprehensive registration and verification exercise designed to ensure transparency, accountability and effective targeting.
Governor Otti said the government established a database to accurately identify genuine farmers and link them to their farmlands.
“We started with data gathering because we wanted to map every farmer to a farm. We now have a comprehensive database of our farmers. If we cannot identify you, we won’t be able to support you,” Otti said.
He encouraged farmers who have yet to register to take advantage of the ongoing exercise to qualify for future government interventions.
According to him, while the administration remains committed to supporting smallholder farmers, greater emphasis is being placed on commercial agriculture as a driver of sustainable economic development.
“We believe strongly that subsistence farming may not take us too far. While we are not disinterested in subsistence farming, we are aggressively promoting commercial agriculture because agriculture is a veritable business,” the governor stated.
Governor Otti also announced that the state government would provide free transportation to enable beneficiaries to move the distributed farm inputs to their respective farms.
He further disclosed that Abia’s improved investment climate has attracted a multinational palm oil company, which has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the state government to invest up to $200 million in the agricultural sector.
He said the investment is expected to boost food production, generate employment, reduce poverty, and position Abia as a leading agricultural hub in the country.
Earlier, the State Commissioner for Agriculture, Dr. Cliff Agbaeze, said beneficiaries would receive improved varieties of cassava, rice, maize, plantain, sweet potato, pepper and tomato seedlings, alongside organic fertilizers.
Agbaeze revealed that 3,312 farmers would receive their inputs during the flag-off ceremony, while the remaining 15,322 beneficiaries would be served through distribution centres in their respective local government areas.
He noted that only farmers captured in the state’s verified database with evidence of active farmland qualified for the program, adding that the government had fully funded both the farm inputs and transportation costs.
In his keynote address, the Executive Director of the National Root Crops Research Institute, Prof. Chiedozie Egesi, described the initiative as evidence that agriculture has regained a central place in Abia’s development agenda.
He commended the Otti administration for establishing a credible farmers’ database and pledged the institute’s support towards improving agricultural productivity in the state.
Also speaking, the Vice Chancellor of Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Prof. Ursula Ngozi Akanwa, lauded the program, describing it as a demonstration of the government’s commitment to agricultural transformation, improved rural livelihoods and sustainable economic development.
The event was attended by government officials, agricultural stakeholders, and other dignitaries.
