Towards preventing post harvest loss and linkage of value-chain actors to storage facilities, Ogun State Government has partnered Ikenne Silos, created by the Federal Gornverment and being managed by Terra Farms Limited at Ikenne Farm Settlement in Ikenne Local Government Area.
Leading a Team to inspect the 25,000 metric tons capacity facilities and the 500 metric tons warehouse , Commissioner for Agriculture, Dr Adeola Odedina, said, State Government decided to partner Terra Farms and the Federal Gornverment so that young farmers could easily preserve and sell their farm produce profitably.
He hinted that one of the agricultural agenda of the present adminstration as mandated by the State Governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun is private sector partnership coupled with technical and climate smart agriculture, which he noted led to partnership with Ikenne Silos to assist farmers in preserving their produce as bumper harvest was underway based on Government’s agric intervention, through the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme.
“This is a silo built by the Federal Gornverment of Nigeria and managed by Terra Farms Limited on Ikenne Farm Settlement here to to be a benefit to agricultural and private sector players in Ogun State. Governor Dapo Abiodun has advised us to concentrate on technical and climate smart agriculture and locate agric facilities to help our farmers in handling storage.
So, we are linking them up to storage facilities and 500 metric tons warehouse is also available here. So we want them to bring their grains here for storage, bag at a fee and go with their brands”, he said.
The Head, Value Addition of Terra Farm, Mr Emmanuel Saseun expressed delight at partnership existing between his company and Ogun State Government to limit post harvest losses incurable by farmers and make Agric business move forward in the State being the largest place of agric processing zone in the country.
The Commissioner and his Team also inspected an eight hectares cassava demonstration farm being managed by Cassava Revolution Programme at the settlement, which he said would be a model for young farmers to emulate and make huge profit.
Dr Odedina who disclosed that Governor Abiodun funded the Programme after eight years of neglect, maintained that Cassava Revolution was established to offer technical assistance to farmers with ready off-takers and processors to engender food and nutrition security and industrialisation, saying, “we are creating close to 1,000 jobs in the Farm Settlement to drive agric agenda of the State.”
The Director, Ogun State Cassava Revolution Programme, Mrs Kehinde Jokotoye disclosed that the cassava demonstration farm was fully mechanized and farmers were expected to learn and practice such model.
“We planted to show any farmer, especially the youth who wants to venture into cassava cultivation to follow the model. Whoever that wants to enter into cassava production should follow this. Here we are expecting minimum of 30 tons per hectare”, she stated.
