Cross River State Commissioner for Agriculture and Irrigation Development, Hon. Johnson Ebokpo has presented the Standard Operating Procedure to guide the distribution of 3.5 million improved oil palm sprouted nuts procured from the Nigeria Institute for Oil Palm Research, by the Governor Bassey Otu-led administration under the Cross River State Oil Palm Development Initiative (CRODI) project.
The Commissioner who presented the guidelines in Calabar during a training workshop of enumerators for profiling of oil palm farmers in the State noted that the modalities are to ensure that no interested oil palm farmer that meets the criteria is excluded.
To participate and benefit from the sprouted nuts distribution, Ebokpo stated that a beneficiary must be an existing or intending oil palm farmer resident in any of the 18 Local Government Areas of the State and must have available land for planting; a farmer must have been profiled under the FOLUR-IP oil palm profiling exercise or is captured under the supplementary farmer profiling exercise which commences from the 2nd -10th October 2024; be in his or her community where the said farm is located for the profiling exercise, required to show means of identification like voter's card, NIN slip, Driver's licence or international passport.
The Commissioner stated further that a farmer must commit to planting the sprouted nuts within the State and allow field officers from the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation Development or her sister agencies or partners to visit his or her nursery sites and have access to farm records.
He added that, after a successful enumeration, an account detail would be sent to all profiled farmers for payment of sprouted nuts and accompanying polybags while emphasizing that the size of the land for planting is inconsequential.
Commending Governor Otu's initiative of sustainable oil palm production in Cross River State, Commissioner Ebokpo also informed that a multi-sectorial committee has been set up by the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation Development with Extension officers of the Cross River State Agricultural Development Programme, Agriculture Officers from the 18 Local Government Councils, State Chapter of Oil Palm Growers Association and the National Palm Produce Association of Nigeria.
The committee also has key partners like Solidaridad West Africa, PIND and Food Systems Land Restoration Impact Project ( FOLUR-IP) of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FOA).
