Four years after the Edo State government voted the sum of N40.8 million for communal farms in the state as an emergency measure to boost food production in the state the five existing communal farms in the state are comatose, leading to low food production. The farms located in Anegbette, Ikiran-Ile Warrake and Sabo-Ora local government areas were established by the military governor of Edo State, late Maj. Gen. John Mark Inienger.
Former commissioner of agriculture, Ken Ihensekhien had at a meeting with local government chairmen and their supervisory councilors on agriculture in 2008, directed them to use the N40.8 million provided by government to prepare the land, provide planting materials and supply farm inputs to farmers. As part of efforts towards ensuring food security, Ihensekhien disclosed that the state government had already provided seedlings, suckers and fertiliser to farmers and prepared farm settlements across the three senatorial districts. In addition, he said the construction of the Fadama unit of Agricultural Development Programme, ADP was in progress while 10 new tractors had been commissioned. He expressed the need for more awareness to be created on the global food crisis and maintained that the government has so far implemented a lot of agricultural policies and revived the communal farms across the state with the goal of making hunger a thing of the past in 2009.
As a follow up to this, the state governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole in 2010 presented cheques of N48 million to 30 community farming associations made up of 145 Fadama user groups in the state as part of Fadama III project. While presenting the cheques to the beneficiaries, the governor said the state government was working towards attracting more funds from the World Bank for disbursement to more farmers. “Fadama III project is in line with government’s focus which is to develop agriculture as a renewable tool for job and wealth creation. The challenge we face today is that many youths do not want to remain in the farm as they want to migrate to the urban areas,” the governor regretted, noting that the state had also distributed over 7,000 metric tonnes of fertiliser to farmers. As part of effort to boost food production the state government engaged the services of Vietnamese farmers to cultivate rice in the state.
But the state House of Assembly said all these have not transformed to increased food production but has instead led to rising crime wave and growing unemployment in the state. Mike Ohio-Ezomo, a member representing Owan West in the House, in a motion on behalf of seven other members described the inactivity of the farms as an embarrassment to the state government. He said that the reactivation of the farms would not only ease the problem of youth unemployment but provide sufficient food for the populace while providing a credible platform for the transformation of subsistence farming. 
Kingsley Ehigiamusoe who co-sponsored the motion said that agriculture remains the livewire of any economy, and said the experience of South East Asian nations like Malaysia in food production should serve as an eye-opener. Another member, Sunday Aghedo said that for the farms to achieve their lofty objectives there was a need for government to get local farmers involved on an active scale.
In its resolution, the House asked the government to put machinery in motion to reactivate the five existing communal farms and the strengthening of the office of director of communal farms, which has been dormant in the state ministry of agriculture and natural resources with a view to equipping the occupant with the tools critical to proper monitoring the activities in the farms. The lawmakers are hopeful that with proper management the Edo State ministry of agriculture and natural resources and its four parastatals, charged taking care of about 200,000 peasant farm families about 80 percent of the food needs of the people could be produced. 
The state communal farms were established to provide young school leavers and able bodied persons with employment, boost food production and agricultural raw materials, reduce rural-urban drift and alleviate poverty in the rural areas.

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