Over 5000 farmers from the 33 local government areas of Oyo state have been selected to benefit from the World Bank and federal cares support unit.
Disclosing this to Tribune Online, the head, state cares coordinating unit, Oyo state, Mrs Kikelomo Adegoke, said each of the 5,000 farmer-beneficiaries would get 25 bundles of cassava, 2.5 bags of fertilizer, one litre of herbicide and cash support for mechanisation at 30% of the cost.
She added that this would amount to N200,000/cluster of farmers.
Mrs Adegoke who disclosed that the state has been selected for the visit of the World Bank independent verification agent said it is a confirmation of the commitment of the government to the success of the project.
According to her, Oyo State, as the state with the second largest commitment in the South West and third in the entire country, was selected for this visit.
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“The Oyo State government is clearly committed to the Nigeria COVID-19 Action, Recovery and Economic Stimulus (NG-CARES) programme domesticated as OYS-CARES and has released funds for all result areas.
“There are three result areas and five delivery platforms in Oyo State.
To be clear, the purpose of the visit was to rub minds with the operational officers implementing the programme to prepare them ahead of the visit by the Independent Verification Agent (IVA) to all states of the federation and FCT in October 2022 for assessment and reimbursement.
“The question raised by the World Bank was: Should the IVA visit Oyo State today, will the state scale through the IVA assessment to earn reimbursement?
“All activities, questions and comments passed during the technical mission were to ensure that after the IVA assessment visit in October, Oyo State would qualify for the reimbursement of state funds already expended on the OYS-CARES programme,” she said.
Thanks to the proactive measures taken by Oyo State in 2020 during the distribution of COVID-19 palliatives to farmers, the state has a verifiable database of about 9,000 farmers. So, the distribution of inputs will go to real farmers in the state. Also, in July 2022, the training of 66 facilitators and desk officers that will implement the programme across all LGAs was done.
More recently, inputs and assets to be distributed to farmers have been procured. It should be noted that the programme is not for all crops. To ensure that needs of real farmers are met, the World Bank stated that only farmers involved in the cultivation of specific crops could be supported.
These include cassava, maize, rice and horticultural plants. Oyo State decided to provide support for cassava farmers. Cassava planting begins in mid-September and ends in about mid-October. This explains why input distribution begins later in the year.
Activities have been rolled out, and distribution of inputs has been done for 100 youths at 0.5 ha/youth at the Fasola Agribusiness Industrial Hub.
The next distribution will go out to farmers in 9 LGAs in Oyo State, namely Atiba, Itesiwaju, Iseyin, Ona-Ara, Irepo, Ogo-Oluwa, Saki-West, Atisbo and Oyo West. All of this will happen before the visit of the IVA in October.
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