Cross River Government has budgeted the sum of N1.7  billion for the establishment of a food bank commission in the state.

This was disclosed by the state governor, Professor Ben Ayade, while receiving a delegation from HB Heritage Bank led by its Coordinator of Home Grown School Feeding Programme, Mr. Godwin Ukwat, on a courtesy visit in his office in Calabar, yesterday.

Ayade said that the Food Bank Commission was structured in a manner that each local government area will have a director.

He expressed the willingness of the state government to key into the Home Grown School Feeding Programme on the condition that it was given the free hand to run it.

The governor decried the fact that the practice of agriculture in the country was still at the subsistence level, stating that it was time the country embraced the use of technology in farming.

In his presentation, the HB Heritage Bank, Head of Agric-Finance, Mr. Gbenga Awe said, that the home grown school feeding programme is one of the social safety nets of the Federal Government, which seeks to employ 300,000 youths in the country.