It was a moment of joy for some members of Oyo State Youth Entrepreneurship in Agribusiness Project (YEAP) who are pioneer set of cassava farming project at Fasola Farms as no fewer than 16 of them received cheques worth over one million naira.
While presenting the cheques to the beneficiaries at the OYSADA conference hall, the Director General of Oyo State Agribusiness Development Agency (OYSADA), Dr. Debo Akande stressed the need for youths to be more active in agribusiness.
Dr. Debo Akande who was ably represented at the OYSADA Headquarters, Total Garden Axis of Ibadan, the Capital City of Oyo State by former Permanent Secretary of the agency, Mr Kola Kazeem during the presentation maintained that the project is one of the vision 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 deem 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, Mr Ayooluwa Okediji, a private sector farmer and a partner of OYSADA, said, “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.” Okedij said.
Names of 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.
Some of the beneficiaries that spoke with journalists Mr Kayode Alabi from Oyo West, Ogundijo Timilehin Christiana, Raheem Wahab lauded governor Makinde and OYSADA’S Director General, Dr. Debo Akande for the support both in kind and cash.
The event was graced by Chief Accountant of OYSADA, Mrs Ogunniyi Ruth, Director of Agribusiness Technical Service of the Agency, Mr Joseph Olufemi Ilori, Mr Sola Popoola among others.