Senator seeks end to food insecurity

The Deputy Minority Leader of the Senate, Dr. Lere Oyewumi, has called for a deliberate plan to end the inability of the country to produce enough food for its people.

Oyewumi spoke in Ikire on Friday at the empowerment programme he organised for the people of Osun West Senatorial District, where constituents received 500 bags of fertilizer, 120 motorcycles and a grant of N25 million for women and youths.

According to him, the empowerment initiative was arrived at after interacting with different segments of the Senatorial District to know their most pressing needs.

He added that the motorcycles would be used by the beneficiaries to access locations that could not be reached by vehicles to bring to towns farm produce, while fertilizer would assist the farmers to have improved yield.

The lawmaker representing Osun West in the Senate further said, “One of the major challenges facing the country now is food insecurity and there must be a deliberate plan to reverse the trend.

“Fertiliser is one of the basic ingredients that our farmers need nowadays to assist them on their farms. This is just a starting point. You know there is a ban on the importation of fertilisers. It is not readily available, if not, we would have gotten more than this.

“We are going to have far more than this in the next planting season. We will have at least a thousand bags of fertilisers to assist our farmers in the rural areas to have an improved yield on their farms.

“This is going to be a yearly programme because I promised them when I was contesting. It is not limited to fertilisers alone, it includes the sprayer, chemicals and improved seedlings.”