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| Bolanle Olafunmiloye |
You are a legal practitioner, a woman and you are here heading an agency in charge of wealth creation. How would you describe yourself ?
You’ve described part of it. I am a woman. I am a lawyer by profession. I’ve been a lawyer for 16 years and an agriculturalist for two years. I am passionate about youth employment and empowerment. I think this is what has really driven me to try and perform.
What’s the mandate of the Ondo State Wealth Creation Agency, WECA?
Our main focus is looking at the opportunity of how our people can create wealth through agriculture. Our key mandate is to see the opportunities in the agricultural sector and to ensure that not only that the youths are attracted to the sector but they are retained and make a living in it. We look at all the opportunities, especially the value chain available. When we talk about agriculture, we are not just talking about farming. We are talking about the value chain, the different agricultural products, production, packaging, marketing and all sorts of things that deal with agriculture.
What have been the achievements of the agency since you became its chairman?
The agency was established in 2009. It is one of the first agencies that Governor tried to put in place to be able to tackle the issue of unemployment. Several youths have benefited from the programmes that he put in place. Since I was appointed chairman of the agency on November 15, 2013, a lot of things have happened and we’ve had quite a number of achievements. The agency has four agro cities. These are farm settlements that we run.
They spread across the state. We have one at Ore in Odigbo Local Government Area, southern senatorial district of the state. We have one in Epe, Ondo East Local Government Area which is in the central senatorial district. We have two in the northern senatorial district, one at Ishuada in Owo Local Government Area and the other one in Auga in Akoko Northeast Local Government Area. Basic agricultural facilities were put in place. The idea is that the youths will be trained and whatever is learnt will be translated up there. We restructured the existing programme and called it pro-farmer, Agropreneuor Sustainance Scheme.
Graduates are engaged, trained for a period of one to one and half years on agricultural best practices in key areas such as cassava cultivation, maize cultivation, vegetable cultivation, broiler production, fish farming and cattle rearing. We also have sericulture, bee-keeping and honey production. We launched the programme in 2014 and started with 280 young graduates. But as at now, we have 400 young graduates within a space of one and half years. We have several collaborations. We have collaboration with the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture, IITA, for technical training.
We also collaborated with USAID on best practices, especially on agric business and agric entrepreneurship scheme. We collaborated with SURE-P Graduate Internship Scheme. Under this scheme, they had the opportunity of getting a monthly stipend of N20,000.
Apart from training programmes and collaborations, we’ve also done enough in terms of production. Mr. Governor was able to clear a thousand of hectares of land just for cultivation of cassava and maize. As I speak now, the harvest and milling of the maize is going on. We’ve been able to cultivate 500 hectares of cassava, 300 hectares of maize just between 2014 and 2015.
We’ve also been able to produce 15,000 broilers, both life and frozen. We’ve been able to set up a chicken processing plant, the first that is functional in Ondo state. We’ve also been able to produce 40,000 catfish in three circles. We have both life and smoked catfish. We have 100 cows. There is so much attraction to agriculture. We now have youths coming to us that they are interested in agriculture. With a lot of sensitisation, we’ve let them see how attractive agriculture can be. Infrastructural development is another key one. We’ve provided hostels, poultries, dams, fish ponds. We’ve provided a lot of facilities.
What have been the challenges?
The initial challenge was that a lot of our youths didn’t want to go into agriculture. We spent a lot of time on publicity, advocacy, adverts encouraging youths that agriculture is the way to go. They were not really interested in agriculture because of the perception we have about it. The perception is key and that is a major challenge for us. We need to change the perception of what agriculture should be. It does not encourage us. It is not attractive. We are trying to change the face and perception of agriculture into something that is modern and attractive. It is a challenge and we’ve really been working on it.
The second challenge was funding. It is still a challenge but let me tell you it has come in different stages. We were able to get out of that problem because we are collaborating with the federal government to provide specific funding. It can never be enough because we have over 400 youths and still have 2000 that want to be involved in the project. With collaboration, we are able to have funding for some of our projects. But it can never be enough.
Climate is affecting us. There was a change in climate in 2014 and 2015. It rained all the way to December in 2014. The rain stopped sharply at the beginning of November in 2015 without any notice. It started late in 2015, about late June or July. Rain is supposed to start as far back as March, I mean the one that will allow farmers to crop. So, we have a challenge in terms of climate change. A lot of farmers cannot plant at the right time. The major challenge now is the sustainability of the project. You are aware the administration is winding up and we need to make sure we have a sustainable system in place.
What’s your relationship with the Ministry of Agriculture?
We work together. In fact, 90 per cent of the staff of WECA were deployed from the Ministry of Agriculture. But we have clear roles. The role of WECA is to develop the mindset of the youths and their skills for agriculture so that we can have a new crop of agriculturists. But the Ministry of Agriculture deal with everybody interested in agriculture.
What’s your advice to the teeming youths that want to become pro-farmers?
I keep saying that 2016 is the year of agriculture. Anybody that really wants to know about agriculture, this is the time. People will always eat. You might decide not to buy fuel in your car, park it and take Okada. You might decide not to buy kerosine but opt for firewood. But you must eat at least once in a day. It means that provision of food is still constant irrespective of the economic situation.
The youths have the opportunity to understand the agricultural sector. You don’t have to be a farmer. You can produce, you can package, you can market. Agriculture is the only sector that gives everybody the opportunity to play. It is the only sector that does not discriminate in terms of educational qualifications or statues. You don’t have to have a degree of knowledge before getting into the field. But it is the only sector that is underutilized.
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