The Senator representing Edo South Senatorial District, Neda Imasuen has distributed over 12,000 cocoa seedlings, 9,000 plantain suckers, herbicides and knapsack sprayers to farmers from across the seven Local Government Areas in his constituency. He also presented the farmers with financial support after a training on modern farming approaches.
The exercise was coordinated by the Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria (CRIN). Senator Imasuen said that the training and empowerment exercise was meant to increase the farmers output so as to boost their economic fortune.
According to him, “The training was meant for farmers within and mostly outside Benin. Farmers are in Ovia, Orhionmwon and Uhunmwode local government areas and they need training on agriculture as they dwell in rural areas and that’s my target, especially cocoa farmers. “The programme is mainly for cocoa farmers because many people don’t know that Edo land is fertile to the extent that if we harness our land very well, Edo will be in third position of cocoa production in Nigeria.”
While promising to sustain the farmers’ empowerment programme, he also disclosed plans to train traditional birth attendants, in collaboration with Primary Health Care (PHC) in the senatorial district. He further declared, “We also have a lot of things in the pipeline and we are training 10 tailors who have been taken to Abuja and provided free accommodation for a period ranging from six months to one year.
“We want to teach them how to fish, not just give them fish, so they can become independent,” he added. In addition to these initiatives, the Senator said he has installed several solar street lights across local government areas in the Senatorial District.
