By Dada Ahmed
Cocao and other cash crop farmers in Ofosun village, located along Benin-Lagos Express way in Ondo state,have sent “Save Our Soul” (SOS) to the Governor of the state, Mr Oluwarotimi Akeredolu,to halt the sitting of an energy factory on their farmlands.
Speaking on behalf over 100 cash crop farmers in the area, in a telephone interview with the Correspondent of The Reporters on Friday in Lokoja,kogi state, Mr Kehinde Lamidi said the sitting of the factory in the lands, running into several heactres of land,would spell doom for him and his colleagues.
He said: “Most of us acquired this land, many years ago for the cultivation of cash crops such cocao, plantain, kola nut, cashew, yam, cassava among others and we have been paying revenue to the state government, receipted.
“This is to enable us to contribute our qouta to the agricultural development of Ondo state and the nation at large as well as for self actualization.
“We have no other means of livelihood than this cash crop farming activities,through which we train our children and meet other financial family commitments. We have also been living peacefully with our host community.
“Taking the land from us will amount to sending 100 hundreds of cash crop farmers into already bloated unemployment market with the attendant social and economic consequences to us, our families among other factors.
“All we beg of the governor is for him to use his executive power to cause the sitting of the company,Liquid way Energy limited, on other vast area of the state, rather than Ofosun.”
According to Lamidi, the least sale an average farmer in the land makes from cash crops, per month, is N1 million, adding that the development has great impact on the revenue profile of the state government,
in terms of revenue farmers pay to the government, apart from boosting the success of food security of the state.
According to agricultural experts,Cocoa constitutes the major cash crop cultivated in Ondo State a development that makes the state the largest cocoa producing state in the country with estimated output capacity at 77,000 tons per annum.
The five dominant cocoa producing local government areas in the state are Idanre, Ondo West, Odigbo, Owo, and Akure South.
