Ogun To Empower Women, Youths With Tomato And Chili Pepper Project (TOMAPEP)

- Organises 7-Days Train and Trainers Workshop For Lead Farmers And Extension Officers

The Ogun State Ministry of Agriculture is set to empower 3000 Women and Youth through its Tomato and Chili Pepper Empowerment Project (TOMAPEP) in partnership with the Office of the First Lady of Ogun State, Her Excellency, Mrs Bamidele Abiodun and the German Development Organization, GIZ by expanding the GIZ Nigerian Competitiveness Project (NICOP). Activities kick off with a 7-day Training Exercise at Odeda Farm Institute for 40 Lead Farmers from Monday November 02, 2020 to Saturday November 07, 2020.. These Lead will be trained by GIZ and the State Ministry of Agriculture on Good Agricultural Practices, Financial Literacy,  Farmer Business School,  Integrated Pest Management, Group Formation,  Market Access and more. These farmers will be supported by the state to step down the training to 76 beneficiary cluster  groups formed by the state across all the local governments. 

The First Lady is the matron of the programme that was developed to boost the numbers of Women and Youths that benefit from the GIZ intervention.

The state has committed to helping 3,000 farmers in Tomato and Chili Pepper.

This program was conceived  in February, 2020 with the regional launch of GIZ/NICOP jointly hosted by Ogun State Governmentand GIZ at the Park Raddision Hotel, Abeokuta

Since that time, the state has recieved application from farmers for Tomato and Chili Pepper, engaged in an ongoing screening process for farmers, formed farmers into clusters and selection of lead farmers for each of the clusters.

It is expected that the 40 lead farmers undergoing training in the program are  able to step the training down to the clusters they represent in the 76 clusters across all the local governments.

That's a total of 2500 individuals to start with.

The programme will run for the life cycle of Tomato season. 

There are three arms of beneficiaries namely, 1.) Beneficiaries using technology and greenhouses, 2.) Beneficiaries using irrigation, 3.) Beneficiaries using open field agriculture.

We are working with the market to make sure that the farmers are getting high price for their produce and they are planting at the right time.

The training of Trainers activities is a 7 day program, 4 days to train the 40 lead farmers and 3 days to train 36 extension workers that will be working with the lead farmers in all the clusters.

For the program, it will be officially flag off by the First Lady on Wednesday 4th of November, 2020 by Her Excellency, Mrs Bamidele Abiodun, the matron of the program. However, this is just the beginning of a long journey to success for the farmers who will be given inputs, access to land and finance.