Rice farmers benefitting from the Rural Poor Stimulus Facility (RPSF) in Ogun on Friday laud Federal Government’ continuous support on agriculture, assuring government of judicious utilisation of farm inputs for effective production.
Mr Hundopa Nestor, Mr Peter Ajitonu, Mrs Kehinde Okekpekpe and Mrs Folake Tunji who spoke on behalf of other beneficiaries, gave the commendation and assurance.
They spoke when a monitoring team from the National Programme Management Unit (NPMU) and the Value Chain Development Programme (VCDP) visited.
The team visited the rice farms at Odeda, Odogbolu and Yewa South local government areas of the state.
One of the beneficiaries, Mrs Kehinde Okekpekpe, from Odogbolu Local Government, who spoke on behalf of all the rice farmers, pledged that they would all make appropriate use of the inputs.
Okekpekpe gave assurance that the 2022 planting season would witness a bumper harvest and increase in food security.
She however appealed to the government to always bring the improved seedlings and other farm inputs earlier, and at the right time.
Okekpekpe said late input distribution sometimes affected planting, saying that they would have finished the land preparation stage assuming the seedlings were given earlier.
She also urged the government to help them get ready off takers or market for their harvested produce.
“The government should please help us get off takers, because we can not spend money on farming and at the end we don’t see buyers. That is the only fear we are having,” Okekpekpe said.
Mr Seriki Musa, the team leader from the NPMU, said they came to monitor beneficiaries in Ogun in order to know if the inputs given to the farmers last months had been well utilized.
Musa expressed satisfaction with the performance of the farmers so far, especially in land preparation and planting.
“We have seen that lot of them are making progress in terms of preparation of land to plant their crops, but there are one or two challenges they are encountering which can be solved before each of them goes for full production.
“During this monitoring, we are able to see that there is ample preparation on the part of farmers indicating that they are ready to use the inputs.
“Even some of them have seen the viability of the input and they have seen it is vibrant, so they are ready to go into it and put into use.
“We are coming back soon because there will be an end line survey, to see the effectiveness of the outcome of this support.
“We need to know how it has affected their livelihood, whether they have planted it, whether they record increase in production, and if they are able to get profit from it,” he said.
The team leader said that the intervention was to cushion the effect of COVID-19 pandemic on farmers and also improve incomes and food security.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Federal Ministry of Agricultural, through the VCDP on May 20, had distributed free inputs to rice farmers.
The inputs distributed included improved rice seedlings, herbicides and fertiliser, to 109 rice farmers who were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.