The Ekiti State Fadama Care Office has said that no fewer than 200,000 farmers in the state have benefitted from its intervention programmes in the last one and a half years.
The Project Coordinator of Fadama Cares in Ekiti State, Mrs Olayemi Okunlola, said that more farmers still stood the chance of being beneficiaries in the remaining six months of the two-year programme sponsored by the World Bank, Federal Government and Ekiti State Government.
Okunlola, represented by the Communications Officer, Ekiti Fadama Cares, Yomi Ogunrinde, spoke at Ifaki Ekiti in Ido Osi Council area during a tour of Fadama Cares Result Area 2 beneficiary farmers and projects across the three senatorial areas of Ekiti State.
Areas, where Fadama Cares has intervened and visited, included upgraded markets, plantain processing, Iru (locust beans) processing, smoking kiln, fish pond, poultry production/processing, cassava process and farm road rehabilitation.
The project coordinator said, “This programme is targeted at relieving the farmers from the shock of COVID-19 and it has seriously assisted them to the extent that most of the state governments and farmers are clamouring for the extension of the programme.
“They are calling for an extension because the farmers are benefitting. It is greatly assisting the farmers and making their areas of practice and life generally easy for them.
“Farmers who have benefitted directly in Ekiti State cannot be less than 200,000. Also, some farmers are benefitting from the roads that we have rehabilitated too. There are plans to impact more farmers. The programme is still going on. Quite a lot of farmers will still benefit between now and the end of the programme.
“To benefit, the farmers will have to form themselves into cooperatives in their various steads and they will tell us areas where they want the government to support them. We don’t just determine what to give them, farmers themselves determine what they want,” she said.
Okunlola, however, advised beneficiaries to continue to make good use of the equipment given to them and maintain them in the interest of sustainability.
The Iyalaje of Shasha Market, Oke-Opa Area of Ikere Ekiti, Chief Feyisayo Ayajo, said the toilet and solar-powered borehole provided in the market under the Upgraded Market project, had added value and helped end the habit of open defecation in the area.
Also, the leader of the Dominion Group in Ikere-Ekiti, Mrs Abosede Oyekunle, who is into plantain and potato chips production with her group, said the Industrial Slicing Machine and 40 litres Deep fryer given to them free of charge by Fadama Cares had been an immense benefit to them in aiding their businesses.
