The Managing Director, Fisheries and Aquaculture Business Development Agency (FABDA), Anambra State Ministry of Agriculture, Emeka Illoghalu, has called for the restructuring of agriculture ministries at the federal and various state levels to promote innovations and inventions.
Illoghalu made this call while speaking with journalists, noting that the agriculture ministries in the country are not structured to encourage entrepreneurship, or be favorable to small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and that a total overhaul and reliance on specific agriculture, not general agriculture, is the way to go.
According to him, the ministries dabble in executing projects that they have zero competence to even evaluate, let alone drive or execute, and as a result, funds keep going down the drain without producing sustainable results.
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He disclosed that Anambra State has taken the lead in unbundling the activities of commodities within its Ministry of Agriculture, and a clear example is the establishment of the Fisheries and Aquaculture Business Development Agency (FABDA).
“We have other commodities other than fisheries.” Nothing stops any government, including ours, from taking off from cassava and expanding its value chain. If you look at cassava, for example, you will see that there are several products you can get from the product.
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“You can get starch, fufu (both wet and dry), flour for baking, tapioca, garri, and several others from just roots. Then, you can get several others from the leaves and stems. So, there is a huge economic potential locked in cassava as a commodity.
“We need to take the next step by taking another commodity. I mentioned cassava. “It could be rice; it could be maize; it could be soy beans; it could be any other commodity,” he added.
