*Supports smallholder farmers, YEAP trainees in Ibadan, Ibarapa LGAs through OYSADA
By; BAYO AKAMO, Ibadan
Oyo State Government through the state Agribusiness Development Agency (OYSADA) and its COVID-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus, (N-CARES) project on Thursday, commenced distribution of farm assets and livestock’s for farmers and YEAP trainees across all the 33 local government areas in the state.
The state coordinator for Oyo State N-Care Result Area 2, Mr. Bamigbola Kolawole Adewumi who said the state government is committed to ensuring food security in the state, pointed out that the project has to do with food security, through input and assets distributions for the real local farmers across all the 33 local government areas in the state.
He stressed at the distribution of the farm assets worth millions of Naira for 140 beneficiaries which include, local and small scale farmers, as well as the Youth Entrepreneurship In Agribusiness Project (YEAP) beneficiaries at Ibarapa North Secretariat Headquaters, Ayete that the target for the N-Care Result Area 2 is to meet the needs of its beneficiaries
“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 said.
The N-Care Coordinator added, “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 greater and presser for Gari Processing in this communities.”
“We also have groups of farmers who are into vegetables plantation, they are here this morning, they will be going home with water pumping machine and pumping accessories that is going to be giving to them. These set of farmers are specialized in vegetable plantation, and they’re in four groups, we also have 10 beneficiaries in each groups and they will collect one pumping machines and pumping accessories each, so they’re 40 beneficiaries going home with 40 pumping machines and pumping accessories.”
He stressed further, ” 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.”
Mr Adewumi maintained further, ” 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.”
Speaking at the distribution of farm assets to the beneficiaries in Igboora Mr. Bamigbose Olarenwaju Alani, the Head of Local Government Administration for Ibarapa Central lauded Oyo state government over the state N-CARES project.
“We want to specially thank the Oyo State government for the kind gesture that has been extended to our people here in Ibarapa Central local government under the state N-CARES project, we are so grateful to His Excellency, the executive Governor of the state, Engr. Seyi Makinde for making us one of the beneficiaries of this laudable projects, this is another dividend of democracy that government has been spreading around since governor came on board since 2019 and we thank God that he has been re-elected for another four years term again.
“We are confidence that in another four years again we are going to benefit from greatly from this kind of laudable projects and programmes, we are mainly farmers here in the local government and we are happy that the items distributed to our farmers today will be a great benefit to them and it will surely alleviate poverty and surely reduce unemployment rate in our communities here in our local government, this will also curb youth idleness and and bring more opportunities to our local government and that is why we are so grateful, this items donated will have a positive effect in our local government, most especially in wealth creation and job opportunities as well in the area of security because an idle hand is devil’s workshop so we are grateful again for the government behind this project led by Engr Seyi Makinde, so on behalf of the Local Government Chairman, the traditional rulers here in our local government and the good people of local government we say thank you sir.”
The beneficiaries of the project, Mr. Salako Kazeem Babatunde, a livestock farmer at Ibarapa North Local Government Area Ayete, Mr. Odeyemi Mayowa Odeniyi from Ibarapa Central, Mrs. Okegbenro Suliaht Odunayo from Ibarapa Central, Igboora all lauded Governor Seyi Makinde over the state N-CARES project, they all promised to make good use of the items given to them to the benefit of themselves, their immediate communities and the state at large.
