South-West farmers seek more incentives from FG

Farmers in the South-West zone of Nigeria, under the aegis of the National Programme for Food Security (NPFS), have appealed to the Federal Government to buy back agricultural produce directly from them at a price that would guarantee good profit. This, they emphasised, would encourage young men and women to take to farming and ultimately solve the nation's food problems.In his speech at the group's security quarterly meeting held at the Moor Plantation, Ibadan, Oyo State, the South-West President of the NPFS, Prince J. O. Oyesiji, also called on the Federal Government to purchase agricultural implements and sell to farmers at as low as 50 per cent of the cost to encourage farming and boost food production.Oyesiji also urged the government to create more agriculture settlements as well as adequately fund the existing ones to arrest rural-urban drift. He reminded the NPFS apex bodies of their quarterly contribution to the organization and urged governments at all levels to increase the number of sites in their areas and pay their counterpart funds promptly for onward disbursement to NPFS farmers.The National Programme for Food Security is a World Bank-assisted Federal Government programme initiated by the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo to boost food production. In the scheme, the federal, state and local governments are expected to pay certain counterpart funds to complement grants from the donor agency ' all geared towards provision of farm implements to farmers.Also addressing the meeting, the acting Programme Manager of the Ogun State Agricultural Development Programme (ADP), who doubles as the State Project Coordinator of NPFS, Mr I. A. Onasanya, urged farmers who have benefitted from the agric loans to repay such to ensure the sustainability of the scheme.All the nine sites in Osun State as well as those of Ondo, Oyo, Lagos, Ekiti and Ogun states were represented at the meeting.According to a communiqu issued at the end of the meeting, the dissolution of the executive would be done during the next meeting, during which the account of the body would also be rendered. The body also resolved to push for a legislation to prohibit the sale of fertilizer in the open market other than accredited channels so as to ensure that the commodity gets to the end users.Meanwhile, the group has constituted a committee to review the constitution of the body. The Constitutional Review Committee is will be chaired by Mr. Agboola Jones (Lagos), with Alhaji Dayo Aderoju (Oyo) as Secretary.Other members are Mr. Tunji Ogunleye (Ekiti), I. O. Onigbogi (Osun), Alhaji Oshinowo (Ogun) and Baale Osunkalu (Ondo).
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