Food Shortage: Osun Speaker Mandates Lawmakers To Go Into Farming

Members of Osun State House of Assembly have been directed to go into farming in order to tackle food insufficiency in the state.

Speaker, House of Assembly, Mr Timothy Owoeye gave the directive at the plenary on Tuesday.

Owoeye stated that it was becoming worrisome that people in the region (South-West) were neglecting farming and becoming over dependent on food items from other regions of the country.

He said the strike by meat and food sellers concerning food items being brought to the South-West had shown that the region would suffer acute food shortage, if other regions decided to stop bringing in their food items.

The speaker said, as a measure to encourage people to return to farming, the 26 lawmakers in the assembly would be allocated 10 acres of land each to plant food crops.

He said that the Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Security, Mr Dayo Adewole, would be summoned to appear before the House to allocate farm lands to the lawmakers which they would pay for.

 “Thursday and Friday will thereafter be declared as farming days for the lawmakers, so that they can take farming seriously.’’

The Assembly, thereafter, passed a bill, “The Osun Private Veterinary and Ambulatory Practice Regulation Bill, 2020” seeking to check and curb the activities of unregistered and quack veterinary doctors, for second reading.