Reps, CBN Pledge Support To Boost Cross River Chicken Factory
House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture Production and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) have described Cross River’s Chicken Processing Factory (Calachika) as a source of national pride.
The committee therefore, pledged to enact relevant laws to strengthen its capacity.
The 24000 birds per day chicken processing factory is one of the numerous agro-based industries established by the government of Professor Ben Ayade across the state.
The Chairman of the Committee, Hon. Muntari Dandustse and the Special Adviser to CBN Governor on Development Finance, Anthony Ifechukwu made this assertion during a tour of the facility situated at the Industrial Park in Calabar.
According to Hon. Dandustse, the Chicken Processing Factory was in sync with President Muhammed Buhari’s policy on Agricultural production “which greatly encourages this type of programme under the CBN. This is why we banned the importation of frozen foods.”
He urged other state governors to emulate Ayade’s strides in agro-industrialization.
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His words: “This factory here is a giant stride by His Excellency, the Governor of Cross River and we hope to back it by law so that we will have a successful atmosphere whereby it will encourage this facility to have a backward integration for the economy.
“We encourage all the governors of the 36 states to emulate what Ayade is doing.”
Ifechukwu on his part said he was going back to Abuja to share the success story of the Chicken factory with the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele.
According to him, “this factory for me is a milestone that we should come out to celebrate and thank the Governor for his vision.
“I’m going back to tell the CBN Governor that this program has started in Cross River and we need to do much more.”
The CBN representative disclosed that as part of its intervention, the apex bank “is currently financing 400 farmers to produce broilers for this program but I see us extending the numbers to say maybe 2000 farmers which will produce the number of birds to feed this factory.
“We will work with the state government to ensure that other basic raw materials in the poultry value chain are produced”, he added.
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