The Ekiti State Fadama Care Office has revealed that no fewer than 200,000 farmers in the state have benefitted from its intervention programmes in the last one and a half years.
The Project Coordinator of Fadama Cares in Ekiti State, Mrs Olayemi Okunlola, said that more farmers still stood the chance of being beneficiaries in the remaining six months of the two-year programme sponsored by the World Bank, Federal Government and Ekiti State Government.
Okunlola, represented by the Communications Officer, Ekiti Fadama Cares, Yomi Ogunrinde, spoke at Ifaki Ekiti in Ido Osi Council area during a tour of Fadama Cares Result Area 2 beneficiary farmers and projects across the three senatorial areas of Ekiti State.
Areas, where Fadama Cares has intervened and visited, included upgraded markets, plantain processing, Iru (locust beans) processing, smoking kiln, fish pond, poultry production/processing, cassava process and farm road rehabilitation.
The project coordinator said, “This programme is targeted at relieving the farmers from the shock of COVID-19 and it has seriously assisted them to the extent that most of the state governments and farmers are clamouring for the extension of the programme.
“They are calling for an extension because the farmers are benefitting. It is greatly assisting the farmers and making their areas of practice and life generally easy for them.
“Farmers who have benefitted directly in Ekiti State cannot be less than 200,000. Also, some farmers are benefitting from the roads that we have rehabilitated too. There are plans to impact more farmers. The programme is still going on. Quite a lot of farmers will still benefit between now and the end of the programme.
