Gov Oyebanji Kicks Off Food Bank To Cushion High Costs

The Governor of Ekiti State, Biodun Oyebanji, has said the state’s food storage facility would help to cushion the high cost of food items.

Naija News reports that Governor Oyebanji said the food storage facility was in compliance to President Bola Tinubu’s directive to all governors to float a food bank to help with food security.

At the commission of the food storage facility in Ekiti on Monday, the Governor disclosed that his administration cultivated 6,000 hectares of land in 2024.

Flanked by his Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Security, Boluwade Ebenezer, and Commissioner for Trade, Investment and Cooperatives, Mrs. Tayo Adeola, he expressed his administration’s commitment to addressing hunger in the state.

“We promised Ekiti State good governance and like you said we have been trying to work that talk. The President directed that each state should embark on strategy of food security and in Ekiti State in the last one year, we have started with phase one of a very deliberate attempt to ensure that we prow ourselves out of hunger, last year we cumulatively cultivated over 6,000 hectares of land in the state, all planted,” he said.

Governor Oyebanji further disclosed the government would also buy food from the youths and store them as a way to encourage youths’ participation in farming.

He added that food from the storage facility would be pushed to the market whenever there was an increase in the prices of foods.

“Going forward, we want to ensure that those crops that we buy from the youth, store them there and we will release to the market when there is an increase in prices of food so that we can moderate prices,” he added.