Saviour and Solomon Iwot are two brothers who took over rubber plantation, a family business, from their 82-year-old father, James Iwot.
Both brothers, in their 50s and 40s, respectively, like their father, are neck-deep into rubber business even though they have diversified into other small enterprises since rubber does not generate income monthly.
Their father is described as the oldest and most experienced rubber farmer alive in Cross River State.
He is well known, and has made fortunes from natural rubber with which he trained all his children and built his house.
Now age is telling on him, the reason he rarely goes to his farms to nurture the plantations, but allows the sons to handle the business.
The younger son, Solomon, is today the secretary of NARPPMAN (Natural Rubber Producers, Processors and Marketing Association of Nigeria) in Cross River, while the older brother, Saviour, has grown to have his own farm.
Their family plantations in Odukpani LGA are some of the oldest farms in the state but they have had difficulty to expand the small-sized plantations.
Saviour told Newspot, “Rubber is one product that can bolster the economies of both the state and the country. But we need the government to see rubber as another goldmine as it used to sustain government business in the 1960s to mid-80s.
“We need the government to give us 100 hectares of land to enable farmers in the state cultivate new plantations.”
He said the majority of farmers in the state were struggling to maintain their farms, calling on the government to see rubber as a guaranteed alternative.
He said the only rubber processing factory in the state was not very accessible, requesting that many more be established near raw material bases.
“Biakpan rubber processing plant, the only one in the state, is difficult to access. And so, many farmers now look to far away Edo State to process their rubber crumbs, with attendant heavy financial costs and stress. How many of our farmers can afford such humongous expenses?” He queried.
Corroborating him, Solomon also told our correspondent that: “The quality of rubber from the plantations we have in the state cannot compete with those from nearby countries.
“This is because most of our plantations were cultivated in the 1970s and have gone past their productivity ages. So our farmers need good and quality clones, which are highly priced in the international market.”
He appealed that rubber should be added to the state’s 2024 budget, praying further that the government should come out with a policy document to develop the commodity by making available at least 100,000 hectares of land for rubber cultivation.
While describing the stress involved in rubber farming, they said they toiled more than their counterparts in cocoa, cassava and such other cash crops whose gestation periods do not take years before fruiting.
Speaking on the impediments against quality production of rubber in the state, the assistant manager at Enghuart industries, Otobong Etuk told Newspot that the sub-sector has had no commensurate support from the government.
“Due to the long period of development before tapping, processing and marketing, credit lenders and government authorities are not quite interested in rubber development. And so, rubber despite its myriad of benefits, is neglected.
“We have problems getting fertilizers because they are very expensive and non-available. Also, because of the challenges the sector has, it does not attract workers.”
Mr Philip Okam, manager for nursery development at Enghuart, who has been in the rubber farming industry for several years, also spoke about lack of manpower, saying low payments discourages many from the sector.
Another expert, Patrick Essien, who is development manager at Pamol, blamed policy makers for impediments to upscaling of rubber production in the country.
He advised that experts should be allowed the opportunity to help churn out good policies to boost agriculture and other sectors.
However, speaking on the benefits which the state and the county can garner from rubber, General manager of Pamol Nigeria Ltd, Bassey Okon said the country was richly blessed with very good soil for rubber cultivation.
Okon called on authorities to focus attention on rubber as it can generate more employment and rake in hard currency in the area of carbon credits.
“If you plant rubber, you open vast opportunities for employment. Apart from the income generated from rubber, the country can also earn carbon credits even now that people are talking about climate change.
“Rubber is one major tree crop that opens up this opportunity where the international community gives huge money for planting rubber,” he told Newspot.
Similarly, chairman of NARPPMAN, in the state, Mr Umo Inameti, said natural rubber can generate as much as N200 billion every year for the state if given the desired attention.
Inameti stressed the importance of rubber and the need for the state and the federal governments to give it deserved attention to bolster the economy and reduce unemployment.
Calling on the state government to recognise rubber when his team met with the Commissioner for Crops and Irrigation Development, Johnson Ebokpo, Inameti said: “If we are able to do 50,000 hectares in the next few years, we will drastically reduce rural-urban migration and we will be making about N200 billion direct income to our primary industries annually, not to talk of the by-products.”
According to him, since the oil boom, the state does not give prime attention anymore to rubber which used to be its mainstay years ago.
“Cross River depended heavily on rubber but presently, the state does not have up to 10,000 hectares of prime producing rubber due to the impact of the oil boom”, Inameti said.
National Vice President, South-South of NARPMAN, Mr Usen Umoh, called for development of rubber in the state.
He disclosed that there were vast plantations in the Southern part of the country but that government support needed to be high.
Newspot recalls that Governor Bassey Otu at the end of his cabinet meeting last week disclosed that the state has a N30 billion commercial agric development fund called ‘Project Grow’, saying it is meant to bolster rubber and other sub-sectors.
He said it was the single largest agricultural productivity reform which the government has embarked upon to promote all year-round agricultural production.
On his part, the commissioner for agriculture and Irrigation, Johnson Ebokpo, said the state government has a strong desire to boost the local processing of natural rubber.
He disclosed that Governor Bassey Otu had directed that agricultural commodities such as oil palm, cocoa, rice, cassava and natural rubber be effectively developed and processed in the state.
“We will meet all the players in the rubber value chain, so that we will have a policy document that gives clarity to the entire value chain.
“This administration is very serious with agriculture because we don’t have a choice; it is the evacuation of some of our produce that will make our seaport work and boost our economy,” he said.
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