The Speaker of the Oyo State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Adebo Ogundoyin has said the State government plans to ease the stress off farmers further in the State by repairing five kilometers rural roads weekly across the 33 local governments.
He said this is beyond the N7.6 billion earmarked for the Eruwa and Akufo farm settlements which generated controversies.
Describing rural roads as routes that link farms and villages to communities, Ogundoyin noted that the plan of the State government is to be grading the interlinking roads so as to make movement of inputs to the farms and produces back to the markets easier for farmers in the State.
He revealed this while addressing participants of Eruwa Agricultural Summit, held at his constituency- Ibarapa East Local government.
According to him, farmers are facing enormous challenges which Governor Seyi Makinde’s led administration is ready to solve considering the commitment of the State to it’s vision of making Oyo State the Agro-investment hub of the country.
He said, “Though they say government has no business in business, but I can tell you we are working round the clock to genuinely turn around the fortune of agricultural business in Oyo State by providing needed infrastructures and workable policies to achieve this objectives.
“N4.6billion and N3 billion have been approved for reviving of Eruwa and Akufo farm settlement respectively, making it a total of 7.6 billion naira. We are working on the water dams to ensure it can function and serve both agricultural purpose to these farm estates and water supply for domestic use of our people too.
“As soon as we have caretaker chairmen in place now, weekly, five kilometers of our rural roads linking our farms and villages to towns and cities will be graded in each local government. If we do this throughout the dry season, definitely the impact will be massive and our farmers will be happy.
“I’m happy with the organiser of this event and I sincerely want us to have a roundtable meeting after this agricultural summit so as to collectively map out how to harness possible agro opportunities around us.”
In his words, the Chairman Organising Committee, Mr. Aborode Taofeek Oyeniyi said the summit has brought together academic scientists, researchers, research scholars, farmers, policies makers and potentials farmers to exchange and share their experiences and research results on all aspect of Agriculture.
The summit is the first community-based agricultural summit, planned to promote agribusinesses and bridged the gap between traditional and advanced farming techniques.
According to Aborode, the nonpartisan, grassroots, volunteer based summit’s primary objective is to encourage awareness of agriculture and promote improvements in the quality of life of persons living in Eruwa as an agricultural community.
“It was a two days event, and so far we can say we have provided a platform for policy makers, top managers, researchers, farmers and educators, they came and discussed the most recent innovations, trends and concerns as well as practical challenges encountered and solutions adopted in the fields of Agriculture.
“Niji Institute of Sustainable Agriculture which is an international Agriculture institute is offering to give further training to our participants, and this will be coming very soon.
“Also Professor Adesehinwa and his team has volunteered to consult free of charge for anybody into agriculture in Eruwa, and equally promised monthly training.
“Today again, we have the Speaker who is also an agronomist by profession, we are talking about some future plans and we are hopeful the youths in Agriculture will happy and make lot of exploits with Governor Seyi Makinde,” he added.
