Osun outlines plan to dominate agric sector in Southwest

As part of a strategy formulated to boost the agriculture sector and create wealth while also providing jobs for the unemployed in Osun State, Governor Rauf Aregbesola has announced the take-off of a partnership with Ag Vest Greenhouse on commercial horticultural projects to produce tomatoes, pepper and sweet melon under greenhouse conditions in commercial quantities.
 
Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State
In addition, Aregbesola listed eight areas through which the state plan to dominate the agriculture sector in the Southwest region in the foreseeable future. These include include annual export of over 50,000 tonnes of cocoa; construction of over 700km rural roads to reduce cost of transportation and increase access to markets; construction of over 30 bridges, with access given to areas cut-off from civilisation; over N2.8 billion loan to farmers; over 11,000 farmers supported with direct cash transfers; 5,000 farmers’ co-operatives registered; and government intervention to over 71,000 farmers.

The governor and other members of his team recently visited one of the major rice farms collaborating with the state government to produce Ofada Osun Rice.

The partnership is expected to break the unhealthy reliance on imported rice, generate more income for the state and create job opportunities, as people from every part of the country would be coming into the state to transact business in rice value chain.

Recently, the governor led a delegation to Germany in search of new insights on modern agriculture. Germany has in the past four years trained over 40 young people from the state in modern agriculture techniques such as ‘40 days Goat Fattening’, among others.

This initiative, which forms part of the state government’s policies on agriculture is located at Oloba Farm Settlement, Iwo, where 1,500 hectares of land has been acquired, and a 78 hectares cattle ranch established for the fattening of cattle and goats.


O-Beef, as the programme is called, would see the state dominate the supply of beef to larger markets in Oyo, Lagos and other parts of the southwest. The ranch has the capacity to supply 10,000 cattle.

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