Farmers in Ekiti State have been urged to fully key into the state and federal government policies on Agriculture for them to enjoy maximum benefit and also make the state government realise its plan to make Ekiti self -sufficient in food production.
Oludare Abegund, permanent secretary, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, gave the charge while declaring open the training and seminar organised for enumerators that would carry out registration of farmers in Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital.
The Permanent Secretary explained that the training exercise would enable the enumerators to generate data about farmers in the state.
He said the data would include farm locations, farm size, type of crop to be planted by farmers, names of their co-operative societies and several other vital documents that would assist the government in the sector.
Abegunde, who explained that the United Bank for Africa (UBA) was invited for the training to enable participants register for their Bank Verification Numbers (BVN) urged the farmers to cooperate with the officials and process their BVN as it would give them opportunity to enjoy certain privileges from the government.
He also implored the participants not to allow financial benefits to override the aims and objectives of the programme.
General Manager of Fountain Agricultural Marketing Agency (FAMA), Olugbenga Odesanmi in his own contribution disclosed that the training was in collaboration with the Nigeria Incentives-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending and the United Bank for Africa (UBA).
He noted that the trained Seventy Enumerators and Fifty Canvassers would not just collate data for the government but also assist farmers to key into the programme and provide other essential services to them.
A participant from Ado-Ekiti Local Government, Rasaq Ayomide, who appreciated the Kayode Fayemi-led administration for organizing the training exercise encouraged farmers across the sixteen Local Government areas to avail themselves of the opportunities and fully key into the programme.
Akinremi Feyisipo, Ibadan
