AKINWALE ABOLUWADE
Some pioneer members of the Oyo State Youth Entrepreneurship in Agribusiness Project, YEAP on the cassava farming project at Fasola Farms were full of joy as they were presented with cheques worth over one million naira.
The beneficiaries of the proceeds are Zakariyau Ridwan, Zakariyau Abideen, Opeloyeru Afeez, Salawu Muniru, Yekeen Taiwo,Timilehin Ogundijo, Oluwaseun Olawuyi,Adebayo Kamil, Akeusola Olakunle, Raheem Wahab,Adebayo Sodeeq, Alabi Oluwakayode, Olaniyan Omowumi, Noah Bamidele, Oyetoro Rilwan and Taofik Lasisi.
The Director-General of OYSADA, Dr. Debo Akande, during the presentation of the cheques to the beneficiaries at the OYSADA conference hall, Total Garden, Ibadan, stressed the need for youths to be more active in agribusiness.
Akande, who was represented at the event by former Permanent Secretary of OYSADA, Kola Kazeem, described the project as one of the visions of Governor Seyi Makinde to encourage youths in agribusiness.
“We need to appreciate the state governor, Seyi Makinde, because this is one of his visions and that is what led to the establishment of the YEAP in Oyo State. It’s the realization of that vision that gave birth to OYSADA, led by Dr. Debo Akande.
“The journey has been good since year 2021 that the YEAP was launched, and since then our youths had been empowered. They all went for training in Nasarawa State. The governor deemed it fit that these young ones should be encouraged to be part of the state agribusiness. That was why some of them were selected for the cassava farming project at the Fashola agribusiness hub to pilot the cassava farming project. It was the result of that efforts that we’re celebrating today.
“Having put in that much efforts, the governor deemed it fit to give this sum of money to them as a seed for them to continue to be on agribusiness.We invested in about 45 hectares of land, and only about 18 had been harvested. The remaining is there, and the agreement we had with them is to pay for their efforts. We are here today to give them 50per cent of the proceeds from the individual farms. So, from the harvested farms so far, we realized N2,604,000 and we are giving out N1,302,000.
“The farm is still there; we’re still waiting for other YEAP members to come around and harvest so they can come for their proceeds as well,” he said.
Ayooluwa Okediji, a partner of OYSADA, expressed appreciation to Governor Seyi Makinde, saying, “t was a long journey. I was in class with the YEAP members when they were being trained in Nasarawa state. We must commend the efforts of the DG that we were able to engage these young people shortly after they finished their training. This is one of the results; the cassava pilot that was carried out within the Fashola agribusiness hub.”
“The proceeds they are sharing today is actually what they benefitted from that cluster project. It’s something that is laudable, and I think we must commend the state governor and the DG for this feat.”
“Oyo state governor, through OYSADA, has pioneered the project to encourage other Nigerian youths and this is starting from Oyo State.When you look at the 3,300 youths that have been clustered into different commodity value chains, and this is just cassava group that is sharing the proceeds of their one year plus business, I can assure you that a lot is going on across other commodities such as goats clusters, livestock etc.”
Some of the beneficiaries of the largesse, namely Kayode Alabi from Oyo West, Ogundijo Timilehin Christiana and Raheem Wahab, lauded the governor and the Director General of OYSADA for the Initiative.
The event was graced by the Chief Accountant of OYSADA, Ogunniyi Ruth; Director of Agribusiness Technical Service of the Agency, Joseph Olufemi Ilori; and Sola Popoola among others.
