Ogun State Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security says it is ready to work with relevant legislative bodies and regulatory authorities to consider law that will protect farmers’ rights while promoting accountability and sustainability to further ensure food security.
Commissioner in the Ministry, Hon. Bolu Owotomo, made this known at a forum on Policy Engagement and Stakeholders’ Dialogue on the adoption of Standard Weights and Measures for farmers in the state, organised by Federal Government/Ogun State Government and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Value Chain Development Programme, at Idi-Aba, Abeokuta.
Hon. Owotomo, represented by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry, Mrs. Kehinde Jokotoye, said the state government was committed to facilitating a structural policy dialogue involving stakeholders in the agricultural value chain such as farmers processors, marketers, regulators and development partners.
The Commissioner stated that 97.1 percent of the farmers were willing and ready to adopt best practices if government could take up guidance and policy to support them, saying it was essential for them to understand the importance of standardisation and how it would directly improve their incomes and business.
He explained that the dialogue was necessary for setting clear guidelines on the adoption and the use of standard weights, with mechanism for enforcement to ensure compliance, disclosing that 353 farmers had been trained on standard weights and measures towards ensuring the adoption of the concept by the state through the Value Chain Development Programme.
“The programme has trained 353 farmers till date on standard weights and measures, the upscaling of the training is still ongoing among farmers and we will see to it that it gets down to all farmers in the state”, he said.
In her remarks, National Programme Coordinator, VCDP, Dr. Fatima Aliyu, represented by Mr. Agama Sunday stated that standard weights and measures would eradicate every form of cheating and enhance development and sustainability.
Earlier, Ogun State Programme Coordinator, Mrs. Temitope Ajisafe explained that the stakeholders’ engagement forum was to ensure that objective of standardisation was achieved for the benefit of farmers.
In his contributions, a resource person, Mr. Samuel Adeogun maintained that the advantage of having policy on standard weights and measures was to allow the state to be in tune with international best practices in agricultural production and agri-business, as well as encourage produce upscaling.
Responding, two of the participants, Mr. Bolaji Johnson and Mrs. Olukemi Adebayo lauded the effort of the present administration towards ensuring the availability of standard scales and weight measures to enhance equity, fairness, and accurate transactions across various market in the state, to further promote food security.
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