By NewsCritic Reporters
Traditional ruler of Egwu Ugwu Autonomous Community Ohuhu in Umuahia North LGA, His Royal Majesty Eze Onyebuchi Onuoha on Monday 6th May 2024, flagged off the agricultural sensitization programme tagged Operation Eliminate Hunger ( Ichu Unwu) in Egwu Ugwu Kingdom.
The programme also witnessed the empowerment of farmers with seed yams, improved maize seeds and cassava stems in the first phase of the programme, which is targeted at making the Egwu Ugwu autonomous community the food basket of not only Umuahia North, but the entire Abia State in the near future.
While flagging off the agricultural programme at the Eze’s palace, the traditional ruler Eze Onyebuchi Onuoha, said that Egwu Ugwu community has the capacity to produce enough foods, including vegetables like carrot, garbage, legumes, etc in commercial quantity. He added that they are going to go into big time vegetable farming as there are plans to establish a vegetable market in the area that would cater for the vegetable needs of the people of Umuahia North and Abia throughout the seasons.
The royal father also said that it is now a taboo in his kingdom for any family to go to the market to buy yam to celebrate the New Yam festival, as according to him there is no sense in celebrating New Yam festival with yams purchased from the markets other than ones harvested in the village farms.
He said that with the support of his subjects in the diaspora the community will provide all the necessary farming inputs, including fertilizers to the villagers to boost the yields, promising that the best yam farmer will win an award to encourage them.
“We’ll be doing this programme every year…we are going to stop buying yam in the market. Also, we are going to set up a cooperative, so that whatever you produce, we can buy from you and preserve them. I have discovered where we can buy good seeds at Ibadan for our farmers, we want to eradicate hunger and attain food sufficiency in this kingdom”, Eze Onuoha quips.
The Chairman of the programme steering committee, Chief Lucky Akabuike, commended the traditional ruler for coming up with this initiative. He said the distribution of yam and maize seeds today is the first phase of the farming programme, adding that after the Iko Ji, others will follow like Itu Jigbo, Ede, Odudu, oka, Onu etc.
He said each person captured in the champions of Egwu Ugwu list will get 100 seed yams, pointing out that this is a programme initiated by Eze Onuoha to end hunger and build capacity. According to Lucky Akabuike by the next farming season some of these farmers would produce enough seed yams and other new varieties of seeds to supply the community.
The Traditional Prime Minister of Egwu Ugwu kingdom in his remarks thanked God for Eze Onuoha whom he described as a dynamic king. He urged the beneficiaries of the empowerment to look after the farms, and also asked them to use bags around their homes to plant, since they have already been thought on how to do it in one of the seminars organised for them.
The president General on his part said this is an opportunity that must be utilized, while commending the traditional ruler for the noble initiatives he is implementing both in education and agriculture.
The climax of the event was the distribution of the seed yams and improved maize seeds to the farmers in the first phase of the programme in which over two thousand seed yams were distributed.
