Nigeria: Oyo Initiates N1 Billion Loan Scheme for Farmers

Source from:  Daily Trust 03/14/2012

Ibadan - Oyo State Government has inaugurated a N1billion commercial agricultural loan scheme to serve as incentives to local farmers across the state. The scheme according to the state government is meant to complement Federal Government's initiative to reposition Agriculture for increased revenue generation in Nigeria. Hon. Abimbola Kolade, Oyo Commissioner for Agriculture said at the weekend that the state has put in place effective strategy that would encourage farmers. Some of the incentives to boost farming in Oyo State, according to Kolade include tractor hiring services, rural finance institution building, training and empowerment of farmers on non-crop enterprises, school agricultural programme as well as youth empowerment programmes. The Commissioner said at the 2012 Farmers Productivity Award Ceremony organised by BAT Nigeria which a total of 218 deserving farmers who have excelled in their chosen occupation were rewarded with various prizes including motor cycles, water pumping machines, GP tanks as well as herbicide spraying machines. The commissioner who was represented by the Director of Agricultural Produce in the Ministry, Mr. A. A. Ayanlowo, commended the Scholarship Award Scheme for children of farmers inaugurated recently by the organisers and expressed the hope that all these incentive packages would go a long way in restoring agriculture to its lost glory in the nation. He congratulated the recipients for the exceptional performance that earned them their deserved recognition for the various awards and urged them to reciprocate the good gesture by making good use of the equipment to further boost their production. Earlier in his address, the Demand Chain General Manager of BAT Nigeria, Mr. Hugo Norman described agriculture as an honourable occupation emphasizing that the Farmers Productivity Award Scheme was a demonstration of the company's belief that its relationship with business partners should be mutually productive and beneficial. He said: "Agriculture is an honourable occupation and our partnership with farmers and these schemes are our modest contributions to complementing the efforts of the Federal Government in alleviating poverty by reducing unemployment through job creation." "We are supporting the government initiative to reposition Agriculture for increased revenue generation by setting up an Agricultural Skills Acquisition Centre at Ago-Are, with the objective of training and equipping new farmers with necessary Agricultural skills to be self employed and to be involved in large scale commercial farming," Norman said. He explained that his company's approach has been to train, advice and support the local farmers by providing farm inputs and extension services on proven best practices. He announced that the partnership had clearly resulted in the improved crop yield in the subsequent the years adding that the cash value and volume of local produce grew to over N500 million in the year 2011. Spokesman for the local farmers, Chief Rasheed Bakare pledged that they would make the best use of the farm implements and assorted materials to further improve on their production this year. Dignitaries at the event which attracted hundreds of farmers across Oke Ogun area of Oyo State included the Aare of Ago-Are, Oba Jimoh Oyegoke; the Oniro of Otu, Oba Sunday Adepoju; the Onilua of Ilua, Oba Samuel Durodola, the President of Ibadan Chamber of Commerce, Mines and Industry, Chief Wole Akinwande as well as the Chairman, National Tobacco Farmers Association, Chief Rasheed Bakare. Enditem