‘How we transited from subsistence to large-scale agriculture in Edo’ 

The Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, has said that the state government has moved the state from subsistence to large-scale agriculture, following learning from the Edo State Oil Palm Programme (ESOPP). 
  
The governor, in a chat with journalists, noted that learning from running large-scale oil palm plantations has been transferred to developing commercial cassava farms used for manufacturing flour and ethanol in the state.
  
The governor said: “We still produce food in Nigeria at the subsistence level, which is inefficient. It is sad because before the Civil War, we had commodity boards and people were investing in larger-scale farming, which was more efficient.     
  
“Agriculture was the mainstay of the economy and we didn’t have crude oil at that time. So, subsistence farming for 200 million people is not just going to work. We have got to think about production on scale because we’re a huge country – a large country with a lot of landmass. 
  
“But do we have that culture of agriculture? We produce food like every part of Nigeria.”