Presco Oil Plc, an agriculture company quoted on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) has announced plans to divest from oil palm cultivation and expand rubber plantation by 2018.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Managing Director of Presco Plc, Mr. Felix Nwabuku said while presenting cash to reward to hardworking staff during the company’s end of year party, that the rubber board wood garden for cultivation of the rubber plantation was already ready.
He said the firm planned to cultivate 100,000 hectares of oil palm across the country which will create over 50,000 jobs.
Nwabuku explained that the plan to divest from oil palm cultivation was the right thing to do.
He said Nigerians were lazy towards agriculture as many of them had land but refused to go into agriculture.
The Presco Oil MD also said banks in Nigeria do not support agricultural development.
According to him, “It is the will and determination of the people to drive agriculture, to get into agriculture and practice agriculture. We can then use whatever the government have put in place to support agriculture.
“Our destination as a group in Nigeria is to have in the long run 100,000 hectares of Oil Palm in Nigeria. Now today we have 16,000 hectares put together and we have staff strength of approximately 5,500. It means that in future if we come to a point where we have 100,000 hectares, we are looking at having close to about 45,000 to 50,000 workers working for us.
“We have had challenges in 2016, but we have weathered it successfully. In this 2016, we are able to extend our frontiers. By the time we gathered last year, our Sakponba project which is in Orhionmwon Local Government was an idle, but today the Sakponba project has become a reality, so that is progress.”