Food security: Ogun Govt. pledges continued participation in agric. intervention programmes

The Ogun Government says it will continue to participate actively in all national and international agricultural intervention programmes to ensure food security in the state.
The State Commissioner for Agriculture, Mrs Ronke Sokefun, said this recently while inspecting the 185 hectares of rice and cassava intervention sites in the Yewa Local Government Area of the state.
The commissioner was accompanied by a team from the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) Assisted Value Development Programme.
The tour took the team to Otete, Joga- Orile and Eggua, all in Yewa Council Area of Ogun.
Sokefun said that in order to achieve food sufficiency in the state, the state government had continued to train farmers on agronomy and land preparation.
She said that the government had brokered meetings between farmers and the private sector as major players in rice and cassava production.
She commended the Federal Government and IFAD for its value-chain intervention programme in cassava and rice production in Yewa North, Ijebu North-East and Obafemi Owode Local Government Areas.
The commissioner said the council areas had contributed to food production and promoted the standard of living of the people in rural areas.
This, she said, was in tandem with the third cardinal programme of Gov. Ibikunle Amosun’s administration.
Sokefun said the sensitisation, profiling and mobilisation of farmers had also commenced in Ifo Local Government with a view to taking the programme to all the nooks and crannies of the state.
In his remarks, the leader of the IFAD team, Dr Samuel Iremi, commended government for paying its 2014 and 2015 counterpart fund, which, he said, had ensured the success of the programme in the state.
He called on farmers, who had yet to key in into the programme to do so, for them to benefit from its objective of eradicating poverty in the state. 

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