The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the November 16 governorship election in Ondo State, Agboola Ajayi, has promised to activate a cargo airport in the state to help farmers export agricultural products.
He made the promise during a debate with the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa, organised by Channels Television on Sunday.
Ajayi also decried the lack of storage facilities to help farmers store farm produce in the state, promising to quickly look into that if elected as governor.
“For agriculture, you need to pity the farmers. By the time they harvest plantain, in five days it gets destroyed because no storage facility and no encouragement. When I am governor, I am going to encourage that facility.
“We will also activate our local airport if it is a cargo airport where we can export some of these agricultural products for our people to have access and have enough money as farmers in Ondo State,” Ajayi said.
He also pledged to establish a cocoa processing factory that will be producing chocolates and other products in the state and end the current practice of exporting only raw cocoa.
“We will also establish a good cocoa processing factory for the production of chocolates and everything. What is going on that is that they will just buy the cocoa, take it to Lagos and export that raw product abroad,” he said.
However, Governor Aiyedatiwa acknowledged that there is an array of cash crops in the state and said that his administration is already tapping into it by converting them into products that the people of Ondo are already benefiting from.
The governor said that one year ago, the state government cleared about 10,000 hectares of land to encourage the youths to return to farming, especially cocoa farming.
He also said that a lot of investors have come in to invest in Ondo State because of palm produce which the state is known for.
Both candidates engaged themselves for about two hours tackling each other on issues ranging from security, agriculture, economy and others.
