The Syngenta Foundation For Sustainable Agriculture, led by its Country Program Manager, Mr. Isaiah Gabriel, yesterday held a productive meeting with the Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Security in Ekiti State, Hon. Ebenezer Boluwade. The meeting marked a significant step towards enhancing the business of horticultural crops and improving access to quality, affordable inputs, market opportunities, and financing for smallholder farmers in the state.
The Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture (SFSA) is an implementing foundation that bridges the gap between research for innovations and their delivery for use by smallholders. The Foundation focusses in strengthening small holder farming and food systems, catalyze market development and delivery of innovations while building capacity across the public and private sectors. The Farmer Hub will facilitate smallholder farmers’ access to a range of agricultural services from production to market, including machinery rental options, training on agronomy and compliance with quality standards for access to more lucrative markets, and input and output market access.
During the meeting, the Foundation expressed its commitment to partner with the State Government, specifically through the Ministry of Agriculture, to establish a farmer’s hub in Erifun, Ado-Ekiti. This new hub will be deployed within the recently established Ekiti Youth in Agribusiness Hub initiative, led by the State Government, designed to empower young individuals who have received specialized training in horticulture through Mastercard Foundation Program in Olericulture. The hub is situated on a 5-hectare land space at Erifun, Ado Ekiti and will be supported with solar powered irrigation system that will ensure all year-round production activities. The Farmer’s Hub to be sponsored by SFSA will complement the Horticultural Hub with a store offering affordable agricultural inputs, an open meeting space for knowledge sharing among farmers and stakeholders, and a greenhouse dedicated to vegetable seedling production.
Hon. Ebenezer Boluwade and the Syngenta Foundation mutually agreed to initiate this partnership as a pilot project and set to commence in the coming weeks, with plans for further expansion and the establishment of additional hubs in 2024. To show the readiness and willingness to start implementing the agreement reached, the Syngenta Foundation team, accompanied by ministry staff, visited the 5-hectare farmland at Erifun, Ado Ekiti and expressed their enthusiasm about the site’s potential. They are eager to deploy the Farmer’s Hub before October 15, 2023.
This initiative marks a significant milestone in Ekiti State’s government’s efforts to promote youth involvement in agriculture, fostering economic growth and sustainability in the state. It tallies with the administration shared prosperity agenda that ensures poverty alleviation and job creation.