On the heels of Christmas, the founder of Johnbosco Onunkwo Foundation, Engr. Johnbosco Onunkwo, will inaugurate a monumental site for the formal opening of the $50 million Johnbosco Onunkwo (Agribusiness Development) Farm Project in the state.
The farm project is one out of the many initiatives by Johnbosco Onunkwo Foundation, a non-profit, humanitarian organization. It was established for the development of full-scale mechanised agriculture.
Apart from training cooperative farmers on modern ways of crop cultivation for high yield and large scale commercial production, the project is aimed at granting farmers a non-repayable grant to cultivate crops on the irrigated farmland at Awa, Orumba North LGA and Umunze, Orumba South LGA newly acquired by Engr. Johnbosco Onunkwo, a great son of the soil who creates value with the potentials around him.
By November 2021, the project is expected to meet the millennium investment goals of the United Nations as it is steered on food security, eradication of hunger and crippling of rising food prices, creation of employment and means of livelihood for the local populace which all contribute immensely to agricultural productivity, economic growth, development and industrialization of rural areas.
Describing Engr. Onunkwo as a visionary and dynamic leader, the chairman of the Johnbosco Onunkwo Agricultural Development Project (Cooperative), Mr. Basil Onubeze, expressed the view that the project involves fish farming, poultry, livestock and crop production. He further remarked that in the area of crop production, the project is limited to cucumber, rice, maize and cassava production.
“For this special project, Engr. Johnbosco Onunkwo has acquired about 10 hectares of land at Awa, Orumba North and at Umunze, Orumba South. The project is on-going, as we speak. We kicked off with production of crops like cucumber, maize, cassava and rice. Other aspects of the project such as livestock production will be kicked off immediately after the training of select farmers from Anambra State at Songhai Agricultural Institute, Cotonou.
“When the trainees come back with the knowledge they have acquired, they will train others at the grassroots level. After the training, the trainees will be empowered financially to start agricultural production,” he explained.
Speaking to newsmen, Engr. Johnbosco Onunkwo noted that the multi-million dollars project is expected to employ 5,000 school leavers directly, create wealth, industrialize host communities, open up host communities with feeder roads, and attract direct foreign investments.
