The Lagos State Ministry of Agriculture has revealed plans to raise N41bn for sustainable foo
The Commissioner for Agriculture, Mr Gbolahan Lawal, noted that the funds were expected from the government, private sector, donor agencies and development partners.
Lawal spoke on Wednesday at Ikeja, Lagos, during a meeting with stakeholders on the implementation of the state five-year agricultural road map.
He explained that the road map was to develop agric value chains where Lagos had comparative advantage and enhance the state’s self-sufficiency in food production from 18 per cent to 40 per cent in the next five years.
The commissioner noted that the N41bn would be used to execute projects along the fishery, poultry, piggery, coconut and rice value chains.
He said with the evidence of what agriculture had achieved in other climes, the state hoped to generate millions of jobs for residents.
“Using other economies that achieved economic growth using agriculture as a model, the lesson for the state is that there must be massive investment in infrastructure, encouraging more private sector-driven agricultural interventions, formulating policies that can encourage private sector investment and provision of robust market information systems for agricultural value chain actors in order to have adequate planning and circumvent risks and uncertainties,” he added.
Lawal stressed that youths and women would be given priority in all interventions.
The Special Adviser to the Governor on Agriculture, Ms Abisola Olusanya, called for a symbiotic relationship between the government and the private sector.
Olusanya noted that the relationship would make the private sector the driver of agricultural development, while government remained an enabler to ensure job creation, increased farm income and food security.
“We hope that the ratified road map will unleash a chain of events that will lead to numerous interventions to eradicate the problems affecting productivity in the sector. The expected overall outcomes include improved food hygiene, food safety, food security, employment generation and wealth creation,” she said.
0 comments:
Post a Comment