Stage of Innovation: Prototype (You have a working physical product)

Problem: Agriculture has been the main stay of the Nigerian economy before the discovery of oil. The sector is crucial in providing food security, income, foreign exchange and employment, especially to the youth. According to the National Bureau of Statistics labor data for 4th quarter of 2020, Plateau State has a total working age population of 2,690,344 with less than half (about 1,284,574) in the labor force. Of these, 26.59% are unemployed while 26.15% are under-employed; and therefore, not contributing maximally to the economy of the state. Plateau State is primarily an agrarian community; it has an estimated land area of 53,585.89 sq. km, which is approximately 2,600,000 ha. About two thirds of the land area is arable and about 70% of its people are engaged in agriculture and produce enough food and cash crops for domestic consumption and as inputs for Agro-Allied industries (Plateau Data Dump, 2020). The major food crops cultivated are Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, pepper, tomatoes, leafy vegetables, ginger, garlic, cereals, legumes (cowpea, soybeans, groundnuts peanuts; sesame seed, roots and tuber crops, strawberry, and parsley etc. Moreover, tree crops like cashew, citrus, mangoes, guava etc. are also produced on the Plateau. Livestock activities include cattle breeding & fattening, poultry production, sheep and goat breeding & fattening, quail production, turkey & rabbit production and fish farming etc. This vast potential remains untapped to the detriment of agro- industrial development in the state. Plateau State has one of the best grown tomatoes in Nigeria, it is however estimated that over 30% of annual production is spoilt and lost after harvest especially while being stored or during transit to the market, due to lack of proper preservation and storage facilities.

Unique Selling Point: The traditional method of drying fish, livestock/poultry products and other perishable agro-products in Plateau State usually take the form of smoking, salting, drying which includes open-air drying and sun-drying. These methods have over the years been uses in artisanal and small-scale fish farming, which is not sufficient to serve the growing population and considering the large production of vegetables in the state. Sheer efforts to address these challenges are themselves viable investment channels in dehydrating tomatoes, pepper, onion, ginger, leafy vegetables and other perishable farm products, as well as fish and livestock processing, drying and packaging. This is what my initiative intends to address.