By Adeola Badru, Ibadan

The Oyo State Government through the state Agribusiness Development Agency (OYSADA) and its Covid-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus, (N-CARES) project, have again commenced the distribution of farm assets and livestock for farmers and YEAP trainees across all the 33 local government areas in the state.

The state government in its efforts to protect the livelihood and food security of poor and vulnerable farmers disproportionately affected by the covid-19 pandemic set up state N-CARES project with the aim of facilitating the recovery of local economic activity for the affected farmers in the state.

Speaking with journalists on Thursday during the distribution of farm assets 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, Mr. Bamigbola Adewumi, the state coordinator for Oyo State N-Care Result Area 2, noted that the project 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.

Mr. Bamigbola, while briefing journalists shortly after distribution 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.”

“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.”

“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 Ibarapa Central Local Government, Igboora, during the distribution of farm assets to the beneficiaries in that local government, Mr. Bamigbose 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.

He said: “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.”

The beneficiaries of the project, Mr. Salako 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.

In his words, Mr. Olayiwola Lanre, the Facilitator of state N-Care Project, Result Area 2, Ibarapa North Local Government, Ayete, said, “The program is solely is to militate the adverse effect of covid-19 which ravaged the world world few years ago, some of the local practicing farmers loss their farm produces to the pandemic, so the whole essence of this is to assist those identified farmers to come back on their feet.”

“So, in this local government alone we prepared two documents which is called CARP, which is called Covid-19 Recovery Action Plan, the two documents I prepared cut across the three communities here in our local government, so each CARP document contained one hundred beneficiaries that are known local farmers so we have document for two hundred farmers in this local government alone, so out of the hundred, the state government mandated us to include the YEAP trainees in our beneficiaries document, so 40% of the hundred beneficiaries are YEAP trainees, these are mostly youths, while we have farmers cluster(groups) that are already on ground who are mostly adults, men and women that are from this local government are 60%.”

“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 team will be supply with inputs like maize, cassava stem cuttings, fertilizers, Agro Chemicals very soon as far as the rain stabilize. We worked with data to identify the real farmers here, these beneficiaries are not political farmers but real local farmers as you can see them, they are in groups, we have some of them that are into livestock’s, farming, some are into maize farming, while some are into vegetable only.”

“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 advise for 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.