NEPC ready to provide farmers with 5,000 rubber seedlings to improve yield – Awolowo

Rubber
By Deborah Coker
Benin, March 22, 2018 (NAN) The Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NERC) says to increase the production quota of rubber in the country, it is ready to intervene by providing farmers with 5,000 rubber seedlings.
The Executive Director of the Council, Mr Olusegun Awolowo made this known at a National workshop for rubber processors, producers and exporters in Benin on Thursday.
Awolowo, represented by Mr Samuel Oyedipo, an official of the organisation said this was necessary as the price of natural rubber was increasing at the international market.
He said it was in the light of this that farmers were being encouraged to grow more rubber by using improved seedlings capable of increased yield.
He said that the country’s current production was estimated at 127,000 metric tonnes annually, making it the largest in Africa and seventh globally after Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia.
He said that export earnings from rubber annually stood at about 37 million dollars.
He said Edo was one of the largest producers of natural rubber in Nigeria, also famous in processing and marketing in the whole of West Africa.
Edo Governor Godwin Obaseki said the workshop was long overdue as rubber cultivation and production was gradually being neglected.
Represented by Mr Joe Okojie, the Special Adviser on Agriculture and Food Security, he said there was the need to improve rubber production to reclaim the pride of place it occupied in the 70s.
He said rubber cultivation and production, if well harnessed was an employment generator and revenue earner any time, any day.
Similar, the Commissioner for Agriculture and Natural Resources, Mr Monday Osaigbovo said the state had already keyed into repositioning rubber production as 2,500 hectares of land at Urhonigbe was already being cultivated for the commodity.
Osaigbovo said overtime, the quest for quick return on investment had made people abandon rubber cultivation and production.
In his opening remarks, Mr MacPherson Ileogben, Trade Promotion Advisor, NERC, Benin Export Assistance Office, said that in response to global economic realities, the council had developed some key initiatives.
He said some of the schemes include the Zero Oil Plan and the `One State One Product’ scheme.
Osaigbovo said that the schemes were aimed at ensuring that the non oil sector was well positioned to emerge as a major contributor to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The theme of the workshop is: “Repositioning Nigeria’s Rubber for Competitiveness”. (NAN)
DCO/GY
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Edited by Grace Yussuf