Ekiti gets World Bank’s support to revive farm settlements

The Ekiti State government’s agriculture and rural development programme has received a major boost.

The World Bank is supporting the initiative.

Governor Kayode Fayemi broke the news on Sunday at his Isan Ekiti country home.

According to the governor, the initiative called Rural Access and Marketing Programme (RAMP) will connect Ekiti rural communities to the urban centres and market places.

It will also help in the reconstruction of farm settlements; many of which were built in the fifties by the   late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, but were not put to good use.

Fayemi explained that the initiative would help provide basic amenities at the farm settlements to encourage farmers in the areas to focus on their agricultural activities.

The governor said: “One of my assistants is going to be focusing on agric and farmsteads because, in the course of my campaigns, I went round those farmsteads. My wife also toured the farmsteads extensively. There are things that are required by the people in those farms that will make their work a lot better in terms of social amenities, social investment, in terms of ensuring that we connect the farms to the market.

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“So, we have another initiative that is being supported by the World Bank, which is known as Rural Access and Agricultural Marketing Programme (RAMP). This is meant to assist us to connect our rural communities to the urban centres and the market places in the hope that we can also reconstruct our farm settlements, provide the necessary amenities there and ensure that our people stay back in those places without missing the amenities they ought to have if they were to be in the cities,” he said.

On the College of Technical and Commercial Agriculture, which was scrapped by his predecessor, Fayemi said a bill for the re-enactment of the college establishment law would soon be sent back to the State House of Assembly to enable the school to begin operation legally.