Edo State office of State Employment and Expenditure for Results (SEEFOR), in collaboration with FADAMA 111 project, has disbursed N19,653,400 million to 70 user groups in the state.
BusinessDay reports that the user groups are made up of 914 beneficiaries.
The state coordinator of FADAMA 111, Edward Izivbigie, who presented cheques to the beneficiaries in conjunction with the project coordinator, Edo SEEFOR, Taiwo Akerele, said the sum of N45,752,462,500 million had so far been disbursed to 175 user groups of 2,783 farmers in the past two years.
Izivbigie said the disbursement was second in the series of the SEEFOR/FADAMA 111 collaboration in the state.
According to him, N26.099 million was disbursed in the first phase to 105 FADAMA user groups of 1,869 farmers and N19.653 million to 70 user groups of 914 farmers since 2014, making a total N45,752,462,500 million.
“This collaboration is geared towards empowering small-scale farmers so as to increase their income and create empowerment to our teaming population,” he said.
In every 100 FADAMA beneficiaries, income of 75 of them would have been increased at least by 40 percent as well as to increase the income of FADAMA resource user on a sustainable manner, he said.
In his remark, Akerele urged the beneficiaries to make judicious use of the money for the purpose it was meant for.
The output and results from the earlier fund disbursed through the collaboration have been encouraging, Akerele said, noting that there is still more fund to be accessed under the partnership.
He stressed that SEEFOR/FADAMA collaboration was just one out of the nine collaborations it was running with other agencies of the state government.
“Our decision to go into this partnership is not only to increase the capacity but increase food production in the state as well,” he said.
He expressed satisfaction with the state ministry of agriculture and natural resources collaboration with the two World Bank interventionist agencies in the fight against poverty through food sufficiency and security in the state.
“We are proud of the way the FADAMA is collaborating with the state ministry of agriculture and natural resources, and has maintained a very strong partnership with farmers in the state to generally encouraged them and build their capacity to become valuable and ensure food sufficiency and security for the people of the state.
“We want to encourage you to build on the successes recorded in the first phase of this disbursement so that the World Bank and the state government can be impressed and excited to approve more resources for more farmers to benefit,” he said.
A total of 42 communities have so far benefited from the SEEFOR/ Community Social Development Programmes (CSDP) collaboration in the state, he disclosed, noting that the programme is collaborating with the state government in several areas.
IDRIS UMAR MOMOH
