4,000 Osun farmers get N500m loan to boost food production
Headlines, Osun, State News Sunday, December 4th, 2011Monday, December 05, 2011
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In a bid to banish hunger and poverty in Osun State, the State Governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, has presented the sum of N500million loan to farmers. The governor, during the presentation of cheques to beneficiaries at the ceremony to flag off the N500 million government-guaranteed agricultural loan to farmers, re-affirmed his interest and determination to use agriculture for the socio-economic and industrial transformation of the state.
The interest-free loan in conjunction with the Bank of Agriculture to 4,000 farmers according to Aregbesola, would enhance food production and agriculture in the state of Osun. The governor decried the poor volume of loans given out by the previous administration, which he described as inadequate and going to the wrong hands. He said, “You will all see today that the money we are giving out is not peanuts as it used to be in the past.
What we are doing now is to give out adequate loans to genuine farmers without any favour or party affiliations like it used to be in the past. “The Government of Osun will not be caught unguarded with impending danger ahead in the area of food production. The Federal Government, we were told used N600bn annually to import food into the country. We have to be proactive, hence the distribution of loans to farmers to increase food production in our state.”
The governor charged beneficiaries to utilise the loan judiciously for agricultural enterprises as diversion to non-agricultural activities would not be tolerated. Earlier in his own address, the Managing Director of the Bank of Agriculture, Dr. Mohammed Saturaki, commended Governor Aregbesola for his proactive steps toward the impending food famine that might occur if drastic measures were not taken by relevant authorities.
Saturaki noted that the time for cheap food from Thailand would soon be over, admonishing farmers to rise up to the challenges ahead and enhance food production and agriculture.
-Sun
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on Dec 4 2011. Filed under Headlines, Osun, State News.
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