Three select projects under the Agricultural Transformation Agenda Support Programme Phase -One, for Lower Anambra Irrigation Region are nearing completion.
The projects which are co-funded by the African
Development Bank, in partnership with Anambra State Government, are each sited at Omor, Umuerum, Umumbo and Ifite Ogwari all in Ayamelum Local Government Area and are meant to further enhance farming in the mainly agrarian communities.
Blessing Uchendu reports that the Agricultural Transformation Agenda Support Program-Phase One was introduced by the federal government in 2013 through the National Economic Agenda and is overseen by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
The aim of the programme, according to the government is to promote agribusiness, attract private sector investment in agriculture, reduce post-harvest losses, add value to local agricultural produce, develop rural infrastructure and enhance access of farmers to financial services and markets.
The ongoing projects include a seventeen kilometer Rice-mill – Umuerum road, a sixteen kilometer road at Umumbo and reactivation of giant irrigation pumping station at Ifite-Ogwari to provide irrigation services to the Lower Anambra Irrigation rice fields.
Appraising the works at the sites, the Anambra State Commissioner for Agriculture, Mechanization, Processing and Export, Mr Nnamdi Onukwuba who was conducted round the projects sites, expressed satisfaction with the successes recorded so far by ATASP-1 in the state and called on the construction companies handling the projects to accelerate the pace of work and ensure quality delivery.
The Zonal Programme Co-ordinator, Agricultural Transformation Agenda Support Program-Phase One, Adani-Omor Staple Crop Processing Zone, Mr Romanus Egba, commended Anambra state and the Ministry of Agriculture for meeting up with their counterpart funding, which enabled the progress of work, noting that the projects are a one year scheme that began in March this year and would be completed by March 2021.
On his part, the contractor handling the seventeen kilometer Rice-mill- Umuerum road, Mr Olusegun Bayode, noted that due to the terrain of the area, they constructed a double-coated surface while earthwork had been completed and the road ready for asphalting.
The contractor working on the sixteen kilometer Umumbo road and reactivation of pumping system facility at Ifite-Ogwari, Mr Moses Adelabu, said that the pumping facility has the capacity to pump water through a distance of sixteen kilometers, and could serve three thousand, eight hundred and fifty hectares of land, and promised to put in the best to see to the completion of the projects.
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