By Ayodele Abere
The State Project Coordinator of Fadama Cares in Ekiti State, Mrs Olayemi Okunlola, has admonished the beneficiaries of Fadama Cares in the State to make good use of the facilities provided for them under the ongoing project.
Okunlola gave the admonition on Monday while speaking with a team of journalists led by the Communication Officer, Mr.Yomi Ogunrinde, at the end of the media tour organised by Ekiti Fadama Cares Result Area 2.
The State Project Coordinator emphasized the need to maintain all the facilities, saying any group that fails to maintain the facilities given to them, may not be able to access more as she explained that plans are underway to target more beneficiaries before the end of the project in the State.
Speaking on how to be part of the project, Mrs Okunlola stated that people have to form themselves into groups as Fadama Cares doesn’t recognize an individual, and that the group will tell Fadama Cares the area they want government to assist them by making their request known.
“We don’t just determine what to give them but the farmers themselves determine what they want and that’s why they are succeeding”, said the SPC.
While commending the efforts of the State government and Fadama Cares Management in Ekiti, the Iyalaje of Shasha Market, Oke-Opa Area of Ikere- Ekiti, Chief Feyisayo Ayajo, said now that toilet has been built for them in the market with a solar powered borehole, the facility would be well maintained and that people don’t need to still continue with the habit of deficating in the bush around the popular market anymore.
In a similar vein, the Secretary of the Shasha Market at Agric Olope area of Ado-Ekiti, Mr Yusuf Isiaka thanked Fadama Cares and the State government for building toilet for them in the market too with solar and electricity.
While calling on the State government to ensure that more people are brought to the market for buying and selling as he said that there are still much spaces in the market to be occupied, Isiaka urged the government to completely discourage the habit of displaying goods on the road particularly in the State capital saying it is very dangerous.
Also, the leader of the Dominion Group in Ikere-Ekiti, Mrs Oyekunle Abosede Esther, who is into plantain and potato chips production with her group said Fadama Cares has given them Industrial Slicing Machine and Deep fryer of about 40 litres capacity through the service provider without collecting a dime from them.
In another development, a group of locus beans processors in Ikere, Ado and Isan- Ekiti respectively, Mrs Modupe Owoyeni, a leader of Egbe Oniru, in Ikere-Ekiti, the Iyalaje of Oniru in Ado-Ekiti, Chief Mrs Mopelola Rominiyi and Mrs Toyin Ogundare all gave the same expression by confessing to the fact that Fadama Cares has really done well for them in their different locations.
They all said that Fadama Cares assisted them with the use of processing machine. Unlike before when they used to match the locus beans with their legs which was said to be quite tedious and unhygienic,
They all explained that ever since they have gotten the processing machine through the Fadama Cares , their jobs have been made easier and faster as they explained that they can now process a good number of gallons contrary to the initial practice of processing just a few number of bowls and without having to exhaust their whole energy.
Though, lamenting high cost of the item this time around, Mrs Idowu Yemisi in Ikere-Ekiti opined that the contributions of Fadama Cares have brought more progress and development to their business. She therefore urged the State Commissioner for Agric to help in fulfilling his promise of assisting them in exporting the commodity.
In the category of Poultry farmers, the Chairman of Agbelere and leader of Asejere group in Ikere-Ekiti, Mr. Olajide Aluko said they are into chicken rearing, slaughtering and defeathering, appreciated Fadama Cares for giving them defeathering machine which he pointed out that has really helped in shaping their business for better.
According to Aluko, “before the machine was given to us, we usually went to a distant place to disfeather our chickens but now, that has become a thing of the past.
“The machine is capable of defeathering forty to fifty chickens within just five minutes. When we were still doing it manually, our hands used to pain us seriously and the highest number we could do then was just like twenty chickens in a day.
Similarly, a group leader at Rolat Farmers, Mr. Rotimi Tolulope Olamide, noted that when he joined Fadama Cares last year, that he was given one hundred birds which he said have now increased to six hundred birds and promised that he would continue to produce more, adding that Fadama Cares equally helped them in feed, drugs and chicks to raise for them to increase their production.
At Isan-Ekiti, speaking on behalf of Agbelere, Agbeloba and Abulesoro group, Mr. Femi Ogunlade appreciated Fadama Cares for helping them to rehabilitate the 5km Isan/Igbo Ewo farm road in the community.
Recounting, Ogunlade explained that the rehabilitated road leads to the farms of so many of them in the town and that they are usually confronted with difficulty in passing the road during the rainy season especially in bringing home their farm produce.
He said with the intervention of Fadama Cares, they can now heave a sigh of relief having helped them to rehabilitate the road and constructed two different culverts. Mr. Ogunlade urged the state government to still consider tarring the road for them.
The Chairman, Irenitemi Fadama Community Association, Ifaki-Ekiti, Mr. Damilare Ojo Ajala while highlighting some of the items they have benefited from Fadama Cares which included; spraying machine, grinding machine, chicks, goats, maize, cassava, some other farm crops, seedlings with fertilizer noted that the current late maize being sold at Ifaki market were produced by his group.
Ajala stated that the cassava machine given to them has been quite helpful and that it has drawn more patronages to them from different parts of the town, saying that they usually charge below what is obtainable in other places despite that they depend on generator to power the machine in most cases.
“People are no longer going far before they find where they can grind their cassava like before. Those who cannot afford to pay the school fees of their children before are now doing that conveniently just as our members are having enough food to eat”. Ajala explained.
However, as they say that human want is insatiable, just like Oliva Twist, all the groups solicited more support from the Fadama Cares.
Ekiti State Fadama Coordination is saddled with responsibility of implementing result area 2 under NG – CARES
