Agricultural production without the supporting skilled labour or manpower has been the problem of agricultural development in Nigeria since Independent. Whereas a lot of emphasis was anchored on unskilled labour during the era of groundnut pyramid and oil palm production by the British colonial masters in the early sixties, today maximization of profit coupled with attention to the commercial production of various crops, and the need to feed the ever growing Nigerian population, have all increasingly pointed to the direction of skilled manpower development in the Nation and this has led to the need for having an institution that will serve as a pool for skilled labour need.
His Excellency, the Governor Enugu State, Sullivan Iheanacho Chime in his initiative created the Enugu State College of Agriculture and Agro-Entrepreneurship, the only Institution in Enugu State and second in the entire South East saddled with the production of the needed skilled labour
that will drive our Agricultural production Enugu State and beyond.
Although this experiment took off actively two years ago, the leadership of the Institution in the person of Moses M. Okonkwo (Ph. D.), who is
the Rector of ESPOLY, has brought so much passion and drive that today the Institution has achieved what ordinarily could have taken more than four years to arrive at.
ESPOLY Role in Promoting Commercial Agriculture in Enugu State
In line with the Governor’s interest in commercialization of Agricultural production, Enugu State was one of the States selected by the World among other four states. The Enugu State College of Agriculture and Agro-Entrepreneurship, now Enugu State Polytechnic rose to the occasion for this very program to succeed with farmers being the main beneficiaries. The management therefore came up with a blue print to help fast tract the commercial agriculture development program of Enugu State Government.
Today ESPOLY has at her disposal about 1000 hectares of farm land for use by various cooperative groups interested in the CADP venture. The lands are available for sole maize production, soya bean, ginger etc. and soil test has been carried out indifferent spots in readiness, using the college soil science laboratory. Since May, 2012, a D7 Bulldozer owned by the college has been busy mapping out roads, clearing and stumping the land ready for CADP assisted co-operative farmers to make use of.
ESPOLY as a Service Provider
In the quest to see that the Enugu State Government initiative for Agriculture under CADP is a success, the Rector of the Institution in his vision
procured all the necessary machinery/farm equipments required for service provision to co-operative farmers under CADP.
In addition to the D7 dozer the management made provision for several tractor equipments with various horse powers, in addition to seed planters that
equally serves in the application of inorganic fertilizer to the soil. Arrangement is in top gear by management for putting in place state of the art
processing equipment that will reduce to the barest minimum the usual losses that farmers incur at harvest time.
Demonstrations Farms
Whereas the commercial farms are located two kilometers away from the Polytechnic, all demonstration farms are sited within the college premises. The Agricultural Technology Department has been experimenting with various crops since the last two years with the intention of making the findings available to the co-operative
commercial farmers and the public. The Agronomy Department has worked on the following crops, zea mays (maize) glycinemax (soya bean) cajanus cajan (pigeon pea) solanum melogena (garden eggs) zingiber officionale (ginger spices), the idea is to prove to farmers, that these crops can grow very well in our environment with the right farm inputs. Before now farmers around, especially within Ezeagu Local Government Area has believed that some of the crops we experimented on only grows in the
northern part of the country, but today they know that these crops can equally be cultivated here successfully.
With the support the Agricultural Technology Department has been getting from the management of ESPOLY, the sky can only be limit of the tremendous positive changes the institution will introduce to Agricultural production in Enugu State and Nigeria. Currently in addition to cassava and maize we have been growing in our
commercial farm, we have added hectares of ginger this 2012 farming season.
