Oyo State Government Supports Smallholder Farmers

As part of efforts to protect the livelihood of poor, vulnerable farmers, the Oyo State government through the state Agribusiness Development Agency (OYSADA) and its Covid-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus, (N-CARES) project has again commenced distribution of farm assets to farmers and YEAP trainees across the 33 local government areas in the state.

The state government has set up state N-CARES project with the aims to facilitate the recovery of local economic activity for the affected farmers in the state, as part of its efforts to protect the livelihoods and food security of poor and vulnerable farmers disproportionately affected by the covid-19 pandemic.

The state coordinator for Oyo State N-Care Result Area 2, Mr. Bamigbola Kolawole Adewumi, noted that the distribution of farm assets for 140 beneficiaries which includes local and small scale farmers, as well as the Youth Entrepreneurship In Agribusiness Project (YEAP) beneficiaries at Ibarapa North Secretariat Headquaters, Ayete, has to do with food security in the state, through input and assets distributions for the real local farmers across all the 33 local government areas in the state.

According to Mr. Bamigbola while speaking with newsmen shortly after distributions of farm assets worth millions of naira said, “As part of the mandate given to us for meeting the needs of our beneficiaries, we have crops and other assets that we are giving to our beneficiaries in Ibarapa North Ayete where we are this morning, we are here to make assets distribution to our beneficiaries and these assets include cassava grater and presser machines.

He added that, “We have five of these machines here this morning and we are giving these machines to our cassava farmers that have been grouped into five and in each group we have ten beneficiaries which means they are 50 in number and they are going home with the five machines of cassava grater and presser for Gari Processing in this communities.”

“We also have groups of farmers who are into vegetable farming. They are here this morning, they will be going home with a water pumping machine and pumping accessories. This set of farmers are specialized in vegetable farming, and they’re in four groups. We also have 10 beneficiaries in each group and they will collect one pumping machine and pumping accessories each, so they’re 40 beneficiaries going home with 40 pumping machines and pumping accessories.”

“We also have a group of ten farmers who are into maize farming, they are going home with a maize thresher machine, this machine will be useful for them after they have harvest their maize, they will use the maize thresher machine for processing and these are our youths that were sponsored to Nasarawa by the state government for training and they specialized in maize farming.Maize thresher machine will surely assist improve the ease of doing businesses.”

“In another development we have another set of Nasarawa trainees that will be going home with sprayer and safety kits, all the beneficiaries will be using the items distributed to them to serve themselves and the neighbouring farmers, so they can charge money for doing so, in order to extend and multiply the number of machines given to them, so we expect them to make good use of these items for their own benefit and for the benefit of their entire communities.”

“We also have livestock group of 10 beneficiaries that will be going home with a sheep and a ram, each one of them will be going home with a ram and a sheep because we believed that during the covid-19 some of them lost their stock, so this is just a palliative measure from the state government for them to start again, just as the crop farmers were given inputs during the rainy season, and they will still be given as we continue with this program so in all we are having 140 beneficiaries from Ibarapa North Local Government Area of the state here in Ayete.”

“So the expectation of the state government from the beneficiaries is that we believe these items giving to them is a palliative and they are going to use it judiciously for they are real farmers and not political farmers that will sell items giving to them, so they are going to use it as a starting point to increase their production in their different communities.” Bamigbola said.

In Igboora, the seat of Ibarapa Central Local Government, during the distribution of farm assets to the beneficiaries in that local government, Mr. Bamigbose Olarenwaju Alani, the Head of Local Government Administration for Ibarapa Central commended the state government under the leadership of Governor Seyi Makinde over the state N-CARES project.

“Those that are receiving assets today are 140 beneficiaries because we have divided them into two categories , some will receive assets and while the rest will be supplied with inputs like maize, cassava stem cuttings, fertilizers, Agro Chemicals very soon as the rain stabilizes. We worked with data to identify the real farmers here, these beneficiaries are not political farmers but real local farmers as you can see . They are in groups, we have some of them that are into livestock farming, some are into maize farming, while some are into vegetables only.”

“We also have cassava planters and processors among them, they are local farmers, even our youths that went for training at Nasarawa state who are benefitting from these project have been doing wonderfully well in their various farms, we were provided with the list of the registered farmers as carried out by the extension officers of OYSADA attached to this local government who have on many occasions been to their farms for various interventions and support, as well as providing advice to them when necessary so these are the genuine farmers in our local government, these people have been on register since three years ago, their Biometric including facial capturing are already with the state government.

“The people at OYSADA really done well by visiting all the local government areas in the state for identification purposes and this really make it easier for us to identify the real farmers and it’s that list that we worked with here and we have been instructed not to consider any other farmers that is not on that list, so we worked with the list provided for us by the state government, so my main advice to the beneficiaries is that government has done their part by providing the assets needed for farm processing.”

“These farm assets items will surely make farming job easier, most especially the youths who are just starting their career should make good use of this opportunity and the items given to them so in few years to come they will be remembering this time for good, for the they will also be remembering that Governor Seyi Makinde has been the one that invested in them to be able to stand on their own financially. Olayiwola said.

Agro Nigeria / F.I