Enugu’s 52,000-Hectare Farm Estate Programme Targets 104,000 Jobs Across 260 Wards — Ogbuekwe

Enugu State’s 52,000-hectare farm estate programme is projected to create about 104,000 direct jobs across the state’s 260 political wards, while strengthening food security, promoting agro-industrialisation and positioning agriculture as a strategic tool for tackling insecurity.

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This was disclosed by Engr. Mike Ogbuekwe, former Special Adviser to the Enugu State Governor on Agriculture, during an interactive lecture with participants of Senior Executive Course 48, 2026, of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), who were on a study visit to Enugu State.

The lecture, titled “Leveraging the Orange Economy in the Enugu State Farm Estates Programme,” examined how agriculture, digital technology, youth creativity and entrepreneurship can be integrated to create jobs and drive economic development.

The NIPSS delegation comprised senior participants drawn from the armed forces, the Presidency, state governments, federal agencies and the private sector.

Under the farm estate model, 200 hectares of farmland are targeted for development in each of the 260 political wards, translating to approximately 52,000 hectares across the state.

The initiative is designed to move agriculture away from fragmented individual operations towards organised, commercially driven and technology-enabled farming, with emphasis on mechanisation, access to finance, training, infrastructure and markets.

“Developing the farm estates model is to use food security to drive away insecurity,” Ogbuekwe stated.

The model will organise farmers into clusters, enabling them to aggregate their produce and supply agro-processing industries more efficiently, while creating stronger market linkages and a more reliable supply of agricultural raw materials.

“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.

The programme also incorporates mechanisation, with investments in tractors and the establishment of a tractor assembly plant expected to make modern farming equipment more accessible to organised farmer 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 tractors to their own benefit and for the benefit of our people,” Ogbuekwe stated.

Beyond primary production, the initiative covers the broader agricultural value chain, including processing, packaging, branding, marketing and distribution.

It is also designed to create opportunities for young people and urban residents to participate in agriculture through digital commerce, agricultural marketing, logistics and other creative components of the value chain.

“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,” he explained.

As part of efforts to strengthen the commercial identity of locally produced commodities, agricultural products including Enugu Rice, Enugu Garri, Enugu Palm Oil, Enugu Cashew and Enugu Nsukka Pepper have been trademarked.

Ogbuekwe also linked the farm estate model to rural security, noting that organised agricultural spaces could encourage greater utilisation of rural land for productive purposes while restoring farmers’ confidence to return to their farms.

“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.

Meanwhile, Chairman of Nkanu East Local Government Area, Hon. Sydney Okechukwu Edeh, disclosed that implementation of the programme had reached between 60 and 70 per cent 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 stated.

Nkanu East, he disclosed, is implementing farm estates across nine wards, while similar projects are ongoing in other local government areas.

The NIPSS participants were also exposed to other components of Enugu’s economic development strategy, including the Enugu Market App, which facilitates the ordering and marketing of agricultural products, and the Workers’ Food Scheme, which connects agricultural production with organised consumer demand.

The integrated approach demonstrates how agriculture, digital technology, marketing and youth creativity can work together to create employment opportunities, expand markets and stimulate economic activity.

The Enugu farm estate programme forms part of the state government’s broader agricultural transformation agenda, with the 52,000-hectare target expected to strengthen food production, create jobs, promote agro-industrialisation and position agriculture as a major driver of rural and economic development across the state.