The Plateau state government has set in motion the expansion and development of perishable cargo terminal at the Jos airport to evacuate and distribute farm produce and livestock from the state.
The Governor of the state, Simon Lalong who disclosed this when he spoke with newsmen at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos on Monday said that quick evacuation of farm produce would help the farmers make maximum profits from their crops and also ensure that they are sold out.
Over the years farmers in different parts of the country have suffered poor evacuation of their produce by road and they lose substantial parts of their harvest to delays and precarious movement by road to ready markets in populated cities in the country.
Lalong said as his administration’s emphasis is on agriculture, it is the mandate of the government that farmers are assisted to boost their produce by facilitating the process of their reaching their market, hence the plan to build perishable cargo terminal at the Jos airport, which was already designated as International Cargo Airport.
“The Jos airport is already designated as international cargo airport. It is only that it has not been used for a very long time. So when we came in we went to the place and we have it in the budget to expand the place and provide the necessary facilities so that we can use the airport properly as cargo airport. Secondly we now focus on agriculture as you mentioned. A lot of farm produce comes through Jos, from Maiduguri and other parts of the neighbouring states.
“Jos is a transit to about five states, so all of them will pass through the airport. Because of that we need collaboration with the federal government so we will quickly do the expansion and take advantage of the international cargo airport that we have. When we talk about ranches, we are talking about the production of more cows, so we need a cargo airport,” Lalong said.
The Governor said his government is taking advantage of agriculture in the state and also the development of tourism and solid minerals, which would further boost the cargo airport.
“With counterpart funding we want to boost agriculture development in our state. We had popular farms that were sold about 30 years ago. We want to revive these farms. We also have solid minerals. You know Jos is the home of solid minerals. Now with the emphasis of the federal government on solid minerals we want to explore and boost our revenue with that. Solid mineral is our oil. Very soon we shall start talking about resource control. Thirdly we want to develop tourism in our state because we are blessed with good weather,” Lagos said.
The Governor said when the expansion of the cargo airport is completed; farmers would be transporting the highly sought after tomatoes and other perishables through the airport, noting that it would safe time, ensure the produce arrive at the point of sale still fresh and maximise the profit for farmers, as other bottlenecks road transport constitute would be eliminated.
