Osun identifies 60m active cocoa trees - Aregbesola

NaijaAgroNet:

The Governor of Osun State, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola has disclosed that the state has identified 60 million active cocoa trees, reports NaijaAgroNet.

He made disclosure at a meeting with Cocoa Produce Merchants in the state at the Government House Banquet Hall in Osogbo at the weekend, assuring that his administration endeavour  to make the state great again, hence the recent investment and research into Cocoa production among other areas of agriculture.

For the state to start on reproducing 'Cocoa Omoluabi', Aregbesola said, the state has enumerated and identified 60m active cocoa trees in the state, there will be a new cash inflow making the economy of the state prosperous.

Osun in furtherance to boost agriculture signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) to develop agriculture and massive food production as alternative to reliance on oil sector.

The agreement according to Aregbesola involved releasing of 204.39 hectares of land in Ago Owu Farm Settlement to IITA for the purposes of conducting research and setting up demonstration farms for best farming practices.

IITA, he pointed out, will also carry out cassava, plantain and other crops multiplication including Cocoa as well as train the youths in the state in modern, commercial and profitable farming.

Aregbesola emphasised that the state in her bid to increase Internally Generated Revenue in Osun, will establish commodity board to directly supervised by the office of the governor to ensure that Osun ranks among the best cocoa producers in Nigeria within the next two years.

Earlier, Chairman of All Farmers Association of Osun, Chief Raheem Adeniji said that the association is ready to partner and cooperate with government in her bid to revamp the cocoa farming in the state.

He lamented poor economic state of the country attributing it to neglect of cocoa which was the backbone of the economy in the 60s, identifying the cancellation of Cocoa and marketing Board by the then military government as a setback for the industry in Nigeria.

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Ailing economy: Aregbesola, Ajimobi identify agriculture as panacea

NaijaAgroNet:

The Governor of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola and his Oyo State counterpart, Senator Abiola Ajimobi have urged Nigerians to see agriculture as a better alternative to oil in the resuscitation of the country's ailing economy.

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The Governors stated this in their separate speeches during the seventh Annual Lecture of Nigeria Association of Muslim Law Students of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun.

The duo noted that agriculture remains the largest employer of labour hence the need for individuals and government at all levels to encourage agriculture in a bid to revamp the dwindling economic fortune of Nigeria.

Aregbesola said since oil has been selling for less than $40 for the past months, it is quite predictable that the figures for November, when it is ready, would have dropped again.
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The Governor comparing the present situation when Osun collected N55.8 million to 2013 when the average  money distributed to states from the federation accounts was in excess of N800 billion, said Osun’s average allocation then was N3.6 billion.

According to him, "While our monthly wage bill is N3.6billion, the highest amount we have received this year alone was N2.1 billion. It went as low as N466 million in April while the figure for September was N55 million.

"Don’t think this is a problem for the states alone. The Federal Government under the last PDP administration had to borrow N476 billion from commercial banks to pay salaries of some of its workers (not all) for the last four months of that better forgotten tenure.”

Governor Ajimobi who was the Guest Speaker spoke on a topic titled "State Financing and Over-dependence on Oil: Issues and challenges"  identified a number of factors responsible for the on-going financial crisis in the country.

He called for true federalism as being practiced in advanced countries of the world, saying it is abnormal in any true federalism for any tier to be financially incapacitated as being experienced in the country.

Ajimobi stated that out of the 36 states in the federal structure, not as many as five could survive without federal allocation, saying apart from Rivers, Lagos, Enugu, Delta, Katsina, Akwa Ibom, Ebonyi and Bayelsa State, which have tried to balance their budgets since creation, all the other States have had to depend more on Federal Government for survival.

He said, "Ordinarily, states are supposed to make use of their Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) for recurrent expenditure while statutory allocations are to take care of capital expenditure; but the reverse is pathetically the case currently.

"The current scenario whereby IGR and statutory allocation combined are not sufficiently for states to meet their financial obligations is indeed unfortunate. This has resorted to a situation whereby most states cannot generate the required funds needed to pay workers' salaries.

"Government at the centre is currently assigned 52.68 percent of Federation Account revenues, including 7.5 percent of the account originally earmarked for "Special" projects like the development of the Federal Capital Territory and the amelioration of national ecological emergencies.

"The state and the localities, on the other hand, respectively get 26.72 and 20.60 percent of Federation Account revenues. Nonetheless, over-dependence on oil has made nonsense of this Allocation Formula and what is allocated to each tier except the Federal Government.

"The problem of this heavy dependence on the oil sector, started as far back as 1992 when global crude oil prices started fluctuating from $18.4 to $61 per barrel in 2006 and reached $115.05 per barrel by June 2014. Beyond these latent facts, bureaucratic and political corruption combined have crippled a number of states financially" he lamented.

Ajimobi said the agricultural sector that has been neglected for long on what he described as "black gold" should be revamped to enhance food security, reduce importation of food items and engage able-bodied citizens who are presently either out rightly unemployed or under-employed.

He implored the students to imbibe the spirit of positive leadership qualities by joining the train of development as they explore technology positively to advance in the current and future world.

  

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