Food Security: UN, C'River Partner To Build MDAs Capacity On Agrotech

The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization(UNFAO) and Cross River State Government have agreed to partner on some Agricultural and ICT training for staff of key Ministries, Departments and Agencies in the State.

The partnership was as a result of meetings by the Commissioner, Ministry of International Development Cooperation, MIDC and the Lead Advisor to the Governor on Green Money, Amb. Nkoyo Toyo with the UN FAO Rep, Mr Suffyan Koroma at the UN Country Office in Abuja earlier.

The Programme which will be coordinated by the Ministry of International Development Cooperation (MIDC) will build capacity of staff of some key clusters of the state on agrotechnology and info-business in line with the Cross River State Government efforts towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals.

Speaking during a follow up visit to the UN team to broker the Partnership arrangement, Commissioner for International Development Cooperation, Dr Inyang Asibong , explained that the State Government's Core Policy under Ayade's administration is on Modern Agricultural Production, Distribution and it's value chains markets as well Industrialization.

Asibong explained that the state has keyed into the Federal Government's initiative on Food security and Agricultural revolution to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) , explaining that building the capacity of key MDAs and investing in innovative technology will guarantee food sufficiency not only to Cross River but Nigeria in general.

"I thank the Technical Team for partnering with Cross River which is one of the three States in Nigeria to benefit from the UN capacity building on modern ICT with Kano and Lagos as two other beneficiaries" she added.

Speaking earlier during the visit, the UNFAO technical team leader, Mr Dare Olurunmole who is also a project Desk Officer at the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said the visit was to identify the ICT needs of the Agricultural lines of Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs). The beneficial MDAS include Ministry of Agriculture, FADAMA, SPC, SBS, ADP among others with MIDC as coordinating ministry.

Mr Olorunmole thanked the Cross River State Government as one of the leading states setting the standard in achieving better quality of Agricultural Produce ,with adequate available data in support of the Sustainable development Goals.