The PDP governorship candidate in Enugu State, Peter Mbah, on Saturday said if elected, he would generate 1.2 million jobs by harnessing the potential in the agricultural sector.

The governorship candidate said that if his administration could add 100,000 hectares of farmland to what the state had, it would create 400,000 employment opportunities in each zone.

“Our plan is to have 100,000 hectares of farmland in each senatorial zone. That would amount to 400,000 jobs in each zone and 1.2 million jobs generated from agriculture alone across the state,” he said.

Mr Mbah spoke in Enugu at an interactive session with members of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), Enugu State chapter.

He said his administration would achieve this noble objective through mechanised farming and agro-allied industrialisation, thereby creating different economic zones in the state.

He said the transformation would help to create 1.2 million jobs for the teeming youths in the state.

“We are also going to deploy technology, not just migrating from manual to mechanised agriculture, but also migrating from pipeline to platform means in intervening in the agricultural sector.

“We can’t afford to do a catch-up because basically technology is taking over the space, and we have to do a quantum leap and be in front and make sure that our farmers are ICT literate to be able to use technology,” Mr Mbah said.

He said his administration would work with the House of Assembly to harmonise the land tenure system so that they could plot them depending on the size of what investors wanted to do.

He reiterated his commitment to moving agriculture from the manual and pipeline cultivation method to platform and technology-enabled agro-allied industrialisation.

Mr Mbah said that industrialisation would add value to the production chain, such as processing, packaging, storage facilities, and infrastructure that would facilitate the transportation of farm produce to the market. 

(NAN)