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A Multi-million naira automated farm identified as Matuuci Farms Limited, located at Agbobo Umuoga Ossomala community in Ogbaru Local Council of Anambra has shut down operations, while about 400 workers were asked to stop work following a flash flood that killed no fewer than 25,000 birds.
The Eastern Updates gathered that the disaster also affected potato farm, fishpond and other crops sections in the farm.
Proprietor of the farm, Dr Patrick Sule-Ugboma, who took newsmen round some of the facilities, yesterday, said 400 staff members of the company were sent home, to enable him to address the disaster.
According to him, communities, in the Ogbaru area of Anambra, living along the River Niger coastline often experience flooding.
Sule-Ugboma said his company had lost fortune due to the flood disaster that affected the farm sitting on 20 hectares of land.
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‘We have lost more than 25,000 birds from our poultry and fishes in our ponds, and other properties worth several millions of naira to the flood,’ he said.
According to Sule-Ugboma, the flood also affected some bridges on Onitsha-Ndoni road, especially the bridge at Umunnakwo.
He recalled that the collapse of the same Umunnakwo Bridge, last year, resulted in a boat mishap, which claimed many lives.
Sule-Ugboma said the collapse of bridges on Ogbaru-Ndoni road poses serious danger to residents, and other road users travelling from Ogwuikpele to neighbouring communities, who now resort to crossing the river by wooden boats.
He appealed to both Anambra and Federal governments to urgently come to the rescue of Ogbaru communities.
Sule-Ugboma regretted that in spite of enormous agricultural and other economic activities in the area, enough was yet to be done in the provision of road infrastructure in Ogbaru, Delta, Imo and Rivers corridors.
He said: ‘I am calling on Governor Charles Soludo to look into the plights of our people, especially with the menace of perennial flooding hitting Ogbaru communities again.
“I also called on the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) to consider the construction of the Onitsha-Ndoni road now in a deplorable state,’ he said.
“Agriculture is the mainstay of Ogbaru communities as well as communities in Delta, Imo and Rivers and inspire their contributions to our economy. The people have been subjected to undue neglect by successive state and Federal governments.
“These perennial floods have badly affected farming activities and further impoverished the people. Most of the communities have become inaccessible due to the decrepit state of the only road leading into all the communities.”
