NGO Empowers Farmers To Boost Cassava Production In Ondo |The Source

By Ayodele Oni, Akure

Cassava revolution is imminent in Ondo state as a non governmental organization is set to empower not less than 2,000 farmers.

Klick Connect Network, a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), based in the state, disclosed that it has distributed tractors to farmers  under the “Cassava Revolution to Ethanol project (CASSAREV)”

According to the organization, the project is aimed at boosting the production of cassava for economic development of the State.

Chief Executive Officer of the organisation, Mr. Alexander Ajipe, who revealed this, pointed out that “CASSAREV is a value chain programme set up to discover the various benefits that cassava has toward the economic development of the state.”

Ajipe stated that CASSAREV was initiated to work towards the establishment of an ethanol factory and contribute to human capital development, while also adding that farmers would benefit immensely from the project.

The officer added that 2,434 cassava farmers had been engaged for its first phase of ethanol project saying that

“we have distributed 10 new tractors to our farmers across the 18 local governments in the state. We will also provide herbicides and seedling for them. Their duty is just to supervise the farm. At the end of the day, we buy the cassava from them at international price.

“We are also going to build modular processing factory in Ore, Igbara oke and Ifon for the farmers so that they won’t have any problem in terms of processing it.

“This is a good opportunity for our teaming youth, all what they need is to register which is free, we will give them all the necessary support from the beginning to the end by providing seedling, tractor, herbicides and other tools including security so that there won’t be any issue with herdsmen .

“Their duty is just to supervise the farm and during harvesting, we will buy the cassava from them at international price”.

He, however, called on the people of the state especially youth, to key into the programme because more farmers are still needed across the state.

Giving an insight into how the project will work, Ajipe emphasised that “this is a mechanized farming, apart from giving them tractors, we will give them machines that will plant the cassava so that we can achieve at least 30 tonnes of cassava per hectare. And if they don’t have land, we are partnering with some cooperative societies that will give them land with token.”