Nick Opara-Ndudu, a frontline governorship hopeful of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) for Imo governorship election in 2019, has promised to turn around the economic fortunes of the state through an agricultural revolution that would make the state self-sufficient in food and agro-business employing a larger number of its population.
Speaking in his country home in Emekuku Owerri North Local Government Area of the state, where he addressed the party supporters, he said that agriculture is a springboard for economic revival of Imo State and that his government will be very active in the sector because of its numerous potentials.
Opara-Ndudu, who is a banker, believes strongly that if the rural areas were opened up through the provision of adequate road networks, the people in the countryside would be connected to the cities and allowed easy evacuation of agricultural produce just as farmers would be encouraged to increase production.
He also said that the provision of power, pipe-borne water, hospitals and recreational facilities in the rural areas will stem the menace of rural urban drift as youths will be encouraged to live in the villages and take agriculture as a profession.
The former commissioner, said if given the mandate in 2019, his government would encourage the return of cooperative farming and commodity board, the building of storage facilities and local processing of farm produce.
He said he would revive all the moribund agricultural establishments in the state such as Avutu Poultry Farm in Obowu, Adapalm Plantation in Ohaji, and establish new ones, adding the arrangement would be Public Private Partnership (PPP) driven.
Companies, both local and foreign, willing to invest in agriculture in the state, would be encouraged to do so.
