Enugu State’s farm estate initiative, designed to establish 200-hectare agricultural clusters in each of the state’s 260 political wards, is projected to create more than 104,000 direct jobs while using food production as a tool to tackle insecurity, former Special Adviser to the Governor on Agriculture, Engr. Mike Ogbuekwe, has said.
Ogbuekwe disclosed this on Wednesday during an interactive session on the Smart Farm Initiative organised by the Enugu State Government for participants of the Senior Executive Course 48, 2026, of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), who were on a study tour of the state.
According to him, the farm estate model, which will cover a total of 52,000 hectares when fully implemented, is designed to formalise agriculture, address land-use challenges, facilitate access to finance and technology, promote mechanisation and establish market linkages for farmers.
He said the initiative was also intended to organise farmers into clusters where their produce could be aggregated and supplied directly to agro-processing industries that require agricultural raw materials.
“So, to develop the farm estates model is to use food security to drive away insecurity,” Ogbuekwe said.
He explained that the clustering model would enable farmers to benefit from government-provided infrastructure, training, mechanisation and access to markets, while creating opportunities for young people to participate in agriculture beyond primary production.
“You see, that’s where the creativity component comes in; so that the industries that require our raw materials already know where they can go to get their raw materials,” he said.
Ogbuekwe who is the All Progressives Congress chairmanship candidate of Nkanu East Local Government Area, said the government’s investment in mechanisation, including the acquisition of tractors and establishment of a tractor assembly plant in the state, would further support farmers operating within the organised clusters.
“The idea is, as we’re churning out tractors, the tractors should be going to organized spaces, clusters; where our farmers can use these tryactors to their own benefit and for the benefit of our people,” he said.
Ogbuekwe also said the farm estate initiative was expected to help address the challenge of developing agricultural land in the forested South-East while supporting Nigeria’s broader food security objectives.
He said the initiative was not limited to farming but encompassed the entire agricultural value chain, including processing, packaging and marketing, with technology providing opportunities for urban youths to participate in the sector.
According to him, the state developed the Enugu Market App as a platform for marketing farm produce, while its website is being used to receive orders and engage students as agents to market agricultural products.
He said the model was designed to create an economic link between rural producers and urban consumers, with the rural economy supplying the urban economy and urban youths participating in the marketing and packaging components of agriculture.
“We discovered that the youths, especially the urban youths would like to participate in agriculture, have jobs but they would not know how to do that; so we looked at the value chain of agriculture, from the production to the processing to the packaging to the marketing and we see that the youths of our state would drive the orange economy concept at the marketing arm, the marketing end of agriculture.”
Ogbuekwe added that the state had trademarked several agricultural products, including Enugu Rice, Enugu Garri, Enugu Palm Oil, Enugu Cashew and Enugu Nsukka Pepper, as part of efforts to build stronger agricultural brands.
“What the farm estate is doing for ndi Enugu is that it is creating an organized, formalized system that allows our people go to farm now,” he said.
“The same farm that our people thought they were bigger than are now beginning to farm. Why? Because they have access to tractors now, they have access to farm mechanization tools, training and more is coming; access to markets, market linkages.”
On the implementation of the initiative, Chairman of Nkanu East Local Government Area, Sydney Okechukwu Edeh, said the farm estates were between 60 and 70 per cent ready across the state.
“We’ve gone far, we’re at a 60% level because we’re doing it across the 17 local governments which is 260 political wards,” Edeh said.
He said Nkanu East alone was developing farm estates across nine wards, while several other local governments were undertaking similar projects.
The interactive session which also featured questions from the NIPSS participants and answers, had some local government chairmen in Enugu state in attendance.
The farm estate initiative is part of the Enugu State Government’s broader agricultural strategy aimed at improving food production, creating employment, promoting agro-industrialisation and strengthening the link between agriculture and the state’s emerging technology-driven economy.