•Ms Uwa Osunbor Photo: Sun News Publishing

Woman of the Sun Index

She is young, trendy and friendly. Indeed, Ms Uwa Osunbor readily comes across as the lady next door. But that is until she introduces herself. A lady with uncommon trait, she is a farmer and Special Adviser to the Edo State governor on Farm Development.

Why farm development? Did she lobby for it? Rather than take offence, she tells you that she was appointed into the office based on her antecedent.

"I didn’t lobby for it. I believe the governor picked me based on the fact that he found me suitable for the position. Everybody knows I am a farmer. I own a farm. When His Exellency was making appointments, knowing that I’m a farmer and based on what I have done for myself in the area of agriculture, he felt I can bring in my wealth of experience to lift the state in the area of agriculture."

As if to convince you beyond doubt that as SA to the governor on farm development, she is a round peg in a round hole, she takes you into the history of her active involvement in farming.
She is the owner of Uwa Integrated Farm, which lies astride 150 hectares of land at Utesi village, in Ikpoba Okha LGA of the state. She started off in 1996 with oil palm plantation and now has added cassava, plantain, animal husbandry, and fish farming to the list.

Two years ago, she had told Daily Sun in an interview: "My dream is to become not just the biggest woman farmer but the biggest farmer in the country. That is my dream and I am working towards its realisation." She had also said then that if she had her way, she would recommend farming to everybody. "Farming for me is more than business. It is life. It is a good therapy. It heals."

Since she assumed office as special adviser to Professor Oserheimen Osunbor last July, Uwa, at the risk of being dubbed immodest, dubs herself as the face of the millennium farmer, and has been busy criss-crossing every local council in the state preaching the back to land message of the governor. She says the assignment is one in which she cannot afford to disappoint her principal who she says is running a farmer-friendly administration.

"The governor has given me a job to do. I want to make a success of it. While I am doing my job, I don’t see myself along gender line. All that interests me is how to discharge my responsibility successfully."

Part of the responsibility entrusted to her is to supervise existing communal farms, create new ones with a view to improving food production and creating jobs. According to her, Prof. Osunbor believes so much in the potential of agriculture as a turnaround talisman for the state. Perhaps, to underscore the commitment of the governor to the sector, she intones: "We have a farmer-friendly governor. He often tells us that his father was a farmer. He’s in love with farming and farmers."

Food basket
Within a very short time from now, Edo would be at the height of development because as we’re stimulating farmers, we’re also making preparations for industries. If we’re encouraging farmers to produce cassava, if we don’t make provision on how to take it from them, we’re going to have a glut. If we’re making preparations for farmers to plant corn, if we don’t make preparations to receive from them, we’re going to have a glut.

So, consciously, we’re going to have to encourage people to come and invest in the area of industries in cassava production, flour mills and so on. If we’re able to do that successfully; producing food and at the same time setting up industries to take care of the produce, by the end of 10 years, we’d have been at the peak of agricultural and industrial breakthrough.

Millennium farmer
Anytime I go round the local governments to meet with farmers, particularly the youths, I always tell them that this is the face of the new farmer – the millennium farmer. At the beginning, they didn’t believe it when I told them I was a farmer. Some of them even told me, ‘oh, it can’t be true that you’re a farmer.’ But by the time I tell them what I have done in the area of agriculture, a lot of them, particularly the youths, get very excited about becoming farmers. I have been telling them that farming, rather than being a demeaning job is actually the future of the nation. And the people are beginning to buy into it. A lot of young, educated people call me up now to ask how they can become farmers, instead of clutching files and roaming the cities in search of white-collar jobs. Because they see me as a role model they now want to go into farming. I have a lot of women, youths telling me, ‘Oh, if you can do that, we can too’. So, I’m really encouraged.

No fulfilment until…
By the next harvest season when we’d have so much food in the state, when we’d have engaged a lot of our youths by creating jobs for them positively, when we’d have encouraged people to stay back in the LGA’s and still be productive and useful to the society, when we would have our native Ekpoma rice, yam and everything in the market; until then, we won’t relent. I don’t see that taking too long in coming. Then I would have been satisfied.