Okowa's Agricultural Story

By Okolo Onoamaka Jessica

     The fact of the overall influence of agriculture in all sectors of the development of man and his society has never been lost to reasonable men, particularly those in leadership position.
         The same is true of the Okowa administration, which, short on the heels of its inauguration into office on May 29, 2015, unfolded its operational code, the SMART Agenda, under which aegis, agriculture, quite understandably, enjoys premium attention.
    As is evident, the SMART Agenda relate, in full to Strategic Wealth Creation; Meaningful Peace Building Platforms ; Agricultural Reforms and Industrialisation; Relevant Health and Educational Policies, and Transformation of the Environment Through Massive Urban and Rural Development.
     In order to give vent to the critical import of due attention inherent in the SMART Agenda, the Okowa administration has been proactive in three different but correlated ways-sustaining support for the state Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources; creating and sustaining the Job Creation Office, which major activities relate to agriculture, and by its active, prompt support for private interests in commercial farming in the state.
     With regard to the Delta State Ministry of Agriculture, the administration has, since it was birthed into office on account of the outcome of the 2015 gubernatorial poll, proactively lived out the core essence of its avowed commitment to the consistent, active promotion of the agricultural sector. Details of the major activities of the administration with regard to its support for the sector, via the Ministry of Agriculture, formed part of the crucial submissions on the subject by the State Commissioner for Agriculture and Natural Resources, Mr Austin Chikezie, at his recent media brief on Monday, November 28, 2016. In fact, Commissioner Chikezie, at that august occasion, held that, in the light of the fact of the dwindling fortune of the crude oil sector as the country’s economic mainstay, agriculture, a major employer of labour, remained on the front burner of sectors that can, on a sustainable basis, be the strategic tool for the wholesome revitalisation of the national economy, and by extension, that of the state.