APPEAL project decries farmers attitude to take-off grant

Mrs Ranti Sagoe-Oviebo, Lagos State Coordinator, Agro-Processing, Productivity, Enhancement and Livelihood Improvement Support Project (APPEALS) has decried the attitude of farmers towards grants collected from the project.

Sagoe-Oviebo decried the development on Wednesday in Abuja, during the progress monitoring meeting of its project implementation with the World Bank Task Team.

According to her, one of the major challenges we have is that some of the farmers do not have the right attitude; some of them have this entitlement mentality.

“They just think it is the government money, and they can use it like that. They don’t want to take ownership, which is key; the money is not government money because it is also tax payer money.

“If you support farmers and they do not take ownership of what you have done for them, then that programme will not out-live the project.” she said.

She noted that the project was doing a lot of capacity building to encourage farmers.

“In Lagos, we have done quite enough; we have supported over 4,863 farmers with inputs and improved technology on how to improve on what they are doing.’’

She said that the project had supported about 1,786 women and youths, adding that about 21 km of canals were cleaned up in Lagos state.

“We have done 13.16 km roads in four farming communities, we have done 15 aggregates centres in the state; we have been able to support the apex body of aquaculture with processing outlets.’’

She said that the project would add value to the farmers to see that even after the project they could sustain what they were doing.

The Operations Manager APPEALS, Dr. Salisu Garba said that the project had linked 200 agribusiness clusters to infrastructures such as boreholes, tube wells and box culvert across the participating states.

Garba said a total of 16 aggregation and cottage processing centres had been completed, while 59 were at varying levels of construction across the participating states to make a total of 75 aggregation centres.

He said the aim of the project was to reduce the yield gap between farm trials and average national yields and also make up where there were gaps with the use of technology.