OBASANJO Farms, the multi-billion agro-allied business concern owned by former President Olusegun Obasanjo celebrated its 30th anniversary on Thursday.

Guest Speaker at the event, Dr Kwabena Darko, charged the African continent to adopt "the right agricultural technologies" to feed its people without any external support.

He said: "We (Africans) are capable of feeding ourselves by harnessing the right technologies, right within our God-given land. Unless Africa as a continent becomes proactive and harness appropriate relevant technologies in agriculture, we stand the risk of turning our continent into a mass graveyard, when the catastrophe hits eventually."

Darko warned that any Nation which fails to provide measures to achieve food security in the 21st century is on the path of committing suicide"

The farm, which opened on October 8, 1979, exactly one week after Obasanjo left office on October 1, 1979 as military Head of State, now has branches in several states of the federation and employs 6,000 workers, according to Group Managing Director, Obasanjo Holdings, Daniel Atsu.

Obasanjo told the gathering: "I came with a caterpillar bulldozer on October 8, 1979 to start clearing land here in Ota for the formal beginning of Temperance Enterprises Ltd Farming Ventures, which later became Obasanjo Farms Nigeria Ltd.

The farm is an offshoot of the Operation Feed the Nation (OFN) initiative, which the Obasanjo regime introduced between 1976 and 1979 to encourage Nigerians to go into farming.

The former President added: "For us at OFN, our 30 years have been both long and short when we think of the ups and downs we have experienced. It is long and both joyful and painful"