Lagos state government distributes free inputs to fish farmers

In order to ensure food security in the state, the Lagos State Government has distributed free inputs and production assets to 20,000 fish farmers across 20 local government areas and 37 council development areas.

The Commissioner for Agriculture, Lagos state, Abisola Olusanya, disclosed this, saying the initiative was part of the comprehensive plan of the government to drive food security by supporting farming and farmers to thrive.

According to Olusanya, a needs assessment was conducted by officials of the ministry to get the view of farmers as to the required production assets to boost farming, and that the inputs distributed were as a result of their responses.

“The 2022 Agricultural Value Chains Enterprise Activation and Farmers’ Support Programme, which is being flagged off, is designed to provide agricultural inputs and production assets to 120 fishing and farming clusters/communities across 20 Local Government Areas and 37 Local Council Development Areas of the State,” she said.

“In all, over 20,000 fisherfolks and farmers will benefit from the programme while budgetary provision has been made to accommodate a larger number of value chain actors in the 2023 edition of the programme.

“I express profound appreciation to Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu, the Governor of Lagos State for his immense support to agricultural development in the State.”

She said, the attainment of food security had consistently been a major policy thrust of the Sanwo-Olu-led administration given its relevance in promoting the health and well-being of citizens and the achievement of the government’s THEMES Agenda, especially the 4th pillar of making Lagos a 21st century economy.

“In this direction, the ministry developed a five year agricultural and food system roadmap to galvanize public, private, and donor agency efforts in the development of agriculture in the State’s economy.

“The roadmap also provides solutions for the wholesomeness of food items, reduction in post-harvest losses, and improving linkages with industry with respect to backward integration as well as access to financial services and markets.

“This is expected to scale food production from 20 percent demand to the projected 40 percent by the year 2025,” Olusanya said.

She added that various programmmes and projects were designed and implemented to facilitate the attainment of the vision, create jobs, and promote livelihood sustenance for the value chain actors.

She said one of the key challenges is the aging farmers and fishermen population and catching the interest of youths to take to agriculture as a profession, the Ministry partnered with innovative companies to introduce technology in agriculture, especially the upstream sector.

“This is evidenced by the recently launched Tractor-on-the-Go project which is a tractor-hailing service designed to facilitate easy and affordable access to mechanization services through applications installed in mobile phones and integrated agricultural projects implemented in the state secondary schools tagged Lagos Agric Scholars Programme to stimulate the interest of school children in agriculture.”

“Other youth-centered efforts include the Lagos Agripreneurship Programme with the goal of training 15,000 youths with a passion for agriculture of which 3,000 has been successfully trained and plans are being put in place to train an additional 1,200 youth this year,” she concluded.

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