Food insecurity: Provide intervention funds for farmers, Afenifere tells S-West govs

THE pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, yesterday, urged South West governors to provide intervention funds for farmers to address food insecurity.

Briefing newsmen after its caucus meeting, held at the Akure country home of its leader, Pa Reuben Fasoranti, Afenifere said that farmers needed such facilities to survive.

Its spokesperson, Mr Jare Ajayi, in a statement, said: “The meeting deliberated on the visit made by some farmers to the leader, who is also the Asiwaju of Yoruba land, Pa Reuben Fasoranti, a few days ago in his house in Akure, about the status of agricultural practitioners that there are some facilities that they learned are available with the government particularly at the federal level that they are not enjoying.

“The meeting of the Afenifere caucus, therefore, encouraged them to continue to give information about the available facilities.

“In some cases, we learned that there are situations where the state governments needed to pay counterpart funds before farmers would be able to access the loan facilities at the federal level.

“The Afenifere meeting encouraged the state governors in the Yoruba-speaking states to make it easy for farmers in their respective states to be able to access these facilities at the federal level.”

On the status of the Yoruba language particularly in the South-West, he said: “It’s of great concern to the meeting that many parents are not speaking Yoruba language let alone teach their children that language anymore. We create a positive danger of extinction shortly. The meeting, therefore, encouraged all parents to be speaking the language in their homes.

“The meeting also called on the government, particularly in Yoruba-speaking states, to make it a policy and probably even make it compulsory for the language to be used as a medium of teaching at the primary school level and up to the junior secondary school level to encourage the speaking of the language.”