By Fatima Muraina

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The Livestock Productivity and Resilience Support Project ( L-PRES) project has expressed its readiness to begin the empowerment of over 16,000 farmers profiled to boost agriculture and food sufficiency.

The Ondo State Project Coordinator, Mr. Adeogun Olaitan, made this known in an interview with The Hope in Akure, the Ondo State capital.

Olaitan said, “By the grace of God, early next year, when the work plan is approved, implementation will begin for all the farmers that have been profiled.”

He urged profiled farmers to form themselves into cluster groups with a maximum of 20 or a minimum of eight members, who should have registered with either the Ministry of Commerce or the local government, which guarantees their assessment.

The empowerment will not be based on agricultural associations like OSACA, Agbeladun, or the Farmers Congress because they are large organizations. Instead, profiled farmers should form registered cluster groups.

He explained cluster as people around close proximity that are not at far distances from one another.

“We have profiled 16,416 farmers based on our value chain, which includes poultry, pigs, sheep, and goats, and we urge all our farmers to come together to form cluster groups.

“Poultry farmers should form poultry clusters, pig farmers should form pig clusters, and sheep and goat farmers should form sheep and goat clusters.”

This, he affirmed, would be easier to manage than dealing with individuals because cluster farmers will benefit more than individual farmers.

While affirming that profiling is still ongoing, he advised that cluster farmers should get their group registered with their local government area or the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, which will be a criterion for empowerment.

Such groups, he said, could visit the LPres office at Alagbaka so that action could be taken to empower them.

He also cautioned farmers to beware of dubious agents who might try to deceive them, stating that LPres is not collecting any amount from any farmer for registration or farm profiling.

He appreciated the governor for his magnanimity in giving Ondo farmers the chance to benefit from LPres, a six-year World Bank project that has come to Ondo State.

“Out of 20 participating states, Ondo State is one of the luckiest states to benefit from the project, and we plan to start empowering farmers after the approval of our annual work plan from the World Bank and the National Coordination Office.

“By the grace of God, early next year, when the work plan is approved, implementation will begin for all the farmers that have been profiled.”

According to him, the project office will be dealing with genuine farmers who have been profiled through online registration done on their farms, where the longitude and latitude of such farms have been submitted to the National Coordination Office in Abuja, he declared.