Ogun Smallholder Farmers  Benefit From Federal Government Scheme

The Governor of Ogun State, Dapo Abiodun, hailed the commitment of the Federal Government to achieve food security, as 2,400 smallholder farmers in the state have benefited from the National Agricultural Growth Scheme-Agro Pocket.

Abiodun said that his administration was also leaving no stone unturned to achieve food sufficiency and to also be a food basket for the entire country.

The governor disclosed this during the inauguration of the 13-member State Working Committee of the Federal Government initiated National Agricultural Growth Scheme-Agro Pocket.

Abiodun, while thanking President Bola Tinubu for the initiative, said that the programme would go a long way toward boosting food production in the country

He said that the initiative was in line with the vision of his government, which recognised the immense potential of employment generation, wealth generation, food production and poverty eradication in agriculture

The governor stated that the scheme was designed to address various challenges associated with smallholder farmers, especially about access to improved and climate-smart crop varieties and organic and inorganic fertilizers, through enhanced private sector participation in input production.

Abiodun said, “This scheme is based on an e-wallet platform, an innovative private sector-based efficient and transparent ICT platform that helps to directly deliver and support smallholder farmers for the purchase of farm inputs without an intermediary.”

The governor urged the committee headed by the Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Security, Dr Bolu Owotomo, to ensure the effective running of the scheme and ensure that its aims and goals were not defeated.

Earlier, Owotomo said that NAGS-AP was one out of many intervention programmes of the Federal Government that the state had embraced

Punch news/ Jamiu Ogunshe