In a bid to promote agricultural development and youth empowerment, the Oyo State Government, has presented over N1 million to no fewer than sixteen pioneer members of Youth Entrepreneurship in Agribusiness Project (YEAP) as proceeds from their cassava production project at Fasola Farms.
The government noted that the funds were generated from the sale of cassava flour produced by the YEAP members, which is a huge achievement for the project, launched with the aim of empowering young people and promoting food security in the state.
While presenting the cheques to the beneficiaries yesterday at the Oyo State Agribusiness Development Agency (OYSADA), Headquarters, Total Garden, Ibadan, the Director-General of the agency, Dr. Debo Akande, stressed the need for youths to be more active in agribusiness.
Dr. Akande who was represented by a former Permanent Secretary of the agency, Mr Kola Kazeem, maintained that the project is one of the visions of Governor Seyi Makinde’s efforts to encourage youths in agribusiness.
He said: “We need to appreciate the state Governor, Engr. Seyi Makinde because this is one of his vision 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 have been empowered, they all went for training at Nasarawa State and they came back and the governor deemed it fit that these young ones should be encouraged to be part of the state agribusiness and that is why some of them were selected for cassava farming project at Fashola agribusiness hub to pilot this 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 have been harvested so the remaining is there, and the agreement we had with them is to pay for their efforts, we are here today to give them the 50% of the proceeds from the individual farms, so from the harvested farms so far, we realized two million, six hundred and four thousand naira and we’re giving out one million three hundred and two thousand naira.”
“The farm is still there, we’re still waiting for other YEAP members to come around and harvest their farms so they can come for their proceeds as well,” he said.
In his remarks, a partner of OYSADA, Mr Ayooluwa Okediji, a psaid, “I’m using this opportunity to appreciate the Governor Seyi Makinde through the Director-General of OYSADA, Dr. Debo Akande for his efforts so far, it 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 we’re able to engage these young people shortly after they finished their training, and this is one of the results, the cassava pilot that was carried out within the Fashola agribusiness hub.”
“The proceeds they’re sharing today is actually what they benefitted from that cluster project and 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 the agency of the government which is OYSADA has pioneered something that is going to encourage other Nigerian youths and this is starting from Oyo State, because 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 which they started few months back.”
“I can assure you that a lot is going on across other commodities such as goats clusters, livestock generally, this is very encouraging, there is no doubt our youths are encouraged to do more in agribusiness through this,” Okediji said.
