The governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the August 9, 2014 governorship election in Osun State, Senator Iyiola Omisore, has described the many agricultural initiatives of Governor Rauf Aregbesola and candidate of the All Progressives Congress in the poll as a huge failure designed to expropriate farmers and illegally acquire thousands of hectares of land for personal use.
Addressing thousands of supporters across Boripe Local Government Area on Saturday, the governorship candidate, in a statement by Prince Diran Odeyemi, the Director of Media and Publicity for his campaign organisation, said Aregbesola introduced more than 30 schemes, with none of them yielding any meaningful result even when large expanses of land have been acquired and state funds deployed.
The statement said: “Osun Rural Enterprise and Agricultural Programme failed because it was premised on subjugating farmers to state control in land acquisition, land clearing and tractorisation. While supposedly helping farmers, Lagos firms were positioned to clear lands, provide tractors, farm inputs, the cost of which are deducted from source from high interest loans.
“The farmers were trapped as they worked on hired land under contracted firms, losing their enterprising freedom and bonded up with heavy indebtedness. The attempted collectivization of farming imprisoned farmers in slave holding farms, reduce farm yields, lower output and accentuate food insecurity in the state.
“O-REAP acquired over 10,000 hectares of land in each LGAs but till date no gainful employment has been offered. For O-FOPS – Osun Fisheries Out-grower Production Scheme, O-BOPS – Osun Broilers Production Scheme, no positive impact were recorded save the propaganda. For O’BEEF, O’ HONEY, O’ COCOYAM, O’ CASSAVA, it was all mere propaganda going by recent survey across the state.
“The effect of the initiatives of the present government is not felt among the operators, agricultural business men / women and the general public. Farmers are worst off; land owners are reaped off, food security is threatened and job creation through agriculture is denied the army of unemployed. The winners are those Lagos firms and new owners of illegally acquired lands.
“I will focus genuinely on agricultural mechanization by adopting the federal model in the sector. Rather than the present system, I will create a tractorisation hiring system that removes burden of farmers while at the same revolutionizing farming system in the land. Farm settlement will be truly revived through infrastructural renewal. We will stop mere playing politics and propaganda with this critical element of our state agricultural revival. More access to farm settlement through road infrastructure will be looked into in addition.”
Senator Omisore listed his priority intervention in the sector as including revival of Cocoa Industry, Ede, setting up of state agricultural commodity board, creation of private sector backed fruits processing plants, setting up of produce storage facilities, encouragement of growth of private sector driven cocoa and palm tree plantations, active participation in federal agricultural transformation plan, creation and funding of back to farm programmes, state support for farm mechanisation using federal templates, application of renewable energies in farming and state guaranteed loan support for farmers, among others.”
He added: “My pledge to Osun people on the agricultural sector is that I will be a genuine friend of farmers. So I will not exploit them through false initiatives. My administration will focus on helping farmers to prosperously farm and create wealth for our collective survival.”
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