With Kehinde Oluwatayo
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In its bid to move Ondo farmers from subsistence farming system to a mechanised one, the Federal Government has acquired some machines to be sold to them at a subsidized rate.

   This was disclosed by the State Director of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr Okanlawon Emmanuel in an interview with The Hope in his office in Akure.

   According to him, farmers in the state will be developed to move to large scale through training on the use of modern technology in the new year.

  Okanlawon who said there are a lot of machineries on ground noted that the step will speed up the operation of mechanisation of farming in the state.

. “We are known for bringing schemes and projects from Abuja for the development of the state most especially in the area of of inputs at a subsidized rate, then the transfer of improved technology in agriculture.

   “But what is spectacular about this year is that we want to develop the farmers to move from subsistence to large scale, based on that federal government has acquired a lot of machineries.

   “On ground, we have rice harvesters, we have threshers, we have harmer mills,  smoking kinns and so on. These are ready for farmers to buy at a subsidized rate so that we will speed up the operation of mechanisation of farming” he said.

In addition to developing the farmers, Okanlawon said there will be provision of improved seedlings, promotion of the anchor borrowers scheme, rural development which he said has started already.

    He added that the ministry will go into rural women and youths in agric empowerment programme.

   He also disclosed that the federal government will embark on water bodies rejuvenation by stocking them with fish so that when they grow, fishermen can have something to can catch.

  According to him, all these are done  in partnership with the state and local government.

    “All along, FMARD has been in partnership with the two tiers of government, the state and the 18local governments. We reach this farmers through Ondo State Agricultural Commodities Association OSACA and there is no local government where we don’t  have farmers who report here”.