Lagos acquires farmlands at Osogbo to meet food need of people

Lagos State government said it has acquired 84 hectares of land in Osogbo, Osun State for purposes of cultivating various types of food crops to meet the immediate needs of the residents of the state.

The State Commissioner for Agriculture, Prince Gbolahan Lawal, disclosed this in a release made available to newsmen by spokesperson of the ministry, Mr. Jide Lawal, noting that the Osogbo Farms would also serve as the aggregation centre for the state government’s collaborative efforts with the DAWN states exporting to other states of federation and countries.

According to Lawal, the Osogbo Farm would also forestall shortage of food as well as ensure food security for the ever-increasing population of the state bearing in mind that Lagos is a coastal state with limited land for agricultural purposes.

ALSO READ: Ijebu Muslim College to hold anniversary luncheon

“Lagos State with a population in excess of 21million people and a daily influx of people from diverse places has serious agricultural land constraints and being a coastal state, the availability of land for agriculture has been drastically reduced due to urbanization,” the commissioner said.

Lawal further disclosed that the state government intended to build another abattoir along the Epe-Lekki Corridor that would cater for the meat needs of the people in that axis of the state bearing in mind the expected increase in activities as a result of the impending Lekki- Free Trade Zone.

He hinted of plans to put in place an Agric Business Application that would not only monetized everything that was done in the ministry but would also support the value chain platform by aggregating everything and everybody along the Value Chain in the state.

According to him, the Agribusiness App is a viable strategy that would transform the agriculture sector by smothering the ways for both old and new as well as young farmers’ entrants in an environment where startups can be nurtured and allowed to flourish.

“Some of the objectives of the App are that it will groom start-up entrepreneurs, small and medium enterprises and agrotech innovators among others in addition to promoting the establishment of agribusiness ventures through a vast pool of commercialising agro-technology from the research and development institutes,” he said.