The South-West Farmers Commodities Association have called on President Bola Tinubu to take advantage of all available human and natural resources in a bid to help the farmers in the region enhance agricultural development.
Olusegun Dasaolu, the Coordinator of the Association, made the call when the Association paid a courtesy visit to the leader of Afenifere Group, Pa Reuben Fasoranti in Akure, the Ondo State Capital.
Dasaolu, who frowned at how the farmers in the South-West geo-political zone were being marginalized as far as agric business is concerned,.said; “when we look at the agricultural development in Nigeria, it is very glaring that the Southwest is being marginalized. Completely marginalized, because when we look at the whole scenario from agricultural development in the country, we could see that rather than the agricultural business to be growing in the Southwest, it is going down.
“Despite the fact that each year, money is being budgeted for agriculture, yet assessment of such funds in the Southwest scores below average. A typical example is the Anchor Borrowers programme that happened during the last administration, above a trillion naira was spent, but when we see the percentage that comes to the Southwest, it is less than 10 percent that will be disclosed by the CBN.
“We want to see and look into the factors that are responsible for this, and how we can correct it so that we can make progress in the Southwest. So, we are here in Akure, at Pa.Reuben Fasoranti’s residence, as an elder-statesman and typical Yoruba man, to brief him of our mission and vision about the development of agriculture in the Southwest.
“It is disheartening where we found ourselves that we are only consuming agriculture products but no longer producing in the Southwest, despite the human and natural resources that are available abundantly in the region. We now felt that we need to rise up to make sure that we tap into our available human and natural resources to make it attractive for our roaming youths to key into agriculture.
“We are here to say enough is enough so that we can be at the same level with our others states as regards the agric business is concerned in Nigeria.
“We need to go into agriculture, we need to feed ourselves, so we are using this opportunity to appeal to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu because we believe that he is in place to act fast, we have enough human and natural resources that we can tap into, our President should take the advantage of this available resources and help the farmers around to grow.”
He, however, said the Yoruba leader, Pa Reuben Fasoranti has been appointed as the life patron of the group in order to champion their fight.
Responding, the leader of Afenifere Group, Pa Fasoranti said; “We can’t do without agriculture because it is our heritage and source of living. Our prayers is that those ruling us should support our farmers.
“I was trained with agricultural proceeds and that was what they use in sending me to school. Agriculture is very important. It was the same agriculture proceed that they use in training siblings in schools too and I still engage in farming even at my old age. Without farming, there would be hunger in the land and there’s need to support farmers.”
By Jacob Akintunde
