Agri-cluster boosts commercial farming with 10,000 hectares in Oyo State
As part of efforts to close the gap between demand and supply of most agricultural food and industrial crops, Tede community, in the Oke-Ogun area of Oyo State, has broken a major barrier to farming by making it contiguous and mechanisation-friendly land available.
This enables Tede Agri Industrial Cluster to commence operation by making 10,000 hectares of cultivable land available for farmers with farming infrastructure such as a dam and a housing scheme.
Disclosing the development, the Project Administrator, Mr Ganiyu Adedeji, said the 10,000 hectares are available for real farmers from all over the country.
He said: “We are ready to contribute our quota to the food security of our country. This cluster will become a major hub for companies seeking raw materials like corn, cassava, sorghum, ginger, thyme, oil palm and several others.
“The cluster promises to be an all-year-round production hub with the commencement of construction for two dams to serve the farming cluster. Other features of the cluster include a 200-unit housing scheme being built in partnership with Federal Mortgage Bank and AG Mortgage Bank.”
Ganiyu explained that the housing units were being built with finance from the two banks and enlisted farmers are to pay back the loans over a period of up to 20 years. Other features of the cluster include the use of D-FAMA technology, an application deployed for precision farming.
The Onitede of Tede, Oba AbdulRauf Oladoyin, made an open invitation to all farmers across the country to set up at the Tede Agri Cluster, saying, “Our community is safe and we are prepared to give all the support needed by the farmers to be successful in our midst.”
Oba Oladoyin pledged support for the project, saying it had come at a time when the country needs to produce more food for its increasing population.
Some farmers have already settled into the hub. A farmer who relocated from Ibadan to Tede for farming, Dimeji Adetunji, expressed satisfaction with the operations of the cluster.
“I have got 10 hectares of prepared farmland and my plan is to cultivate maize. There has been proposed training on crop yield, precision farming and also plans to introduce us to the buyers. This is really good for agriculture in our state,” said.
He enjoined other farmers to participate and contribute their quotas to the agro-industrial development of the country as demand for food increases and production shrinks following widespread insecurity, especially in the northeast and northwest parts of the country.
The Guardian
