Lagos empowers 500 rice farmers

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3 years ago

The Lagos State Ministry of Agriculture has trained and empowered 500 rice farmers across the state as a measure to standardise farming techniques, set good quality for rice production and also compete with international value.

Speaking during the Training and Empowerment programme recently, the Special Adviser to Lagos State Governor on Agriculture, Dr Oluwarotimi Fashola, said that the programme is designed to add value to rice production and also improve its nutritional values.

Fashola stated that the huge population of Lagos State provides a viable ready-make market for rice production, stressing that efforts must be intensified to discourage the importation of foreign rice such that locally produced rice can gain a good market share.

He said that the Lagos State Government has invested huge resources into the development of agriculture production, especially the rice value chain. According to him, in year 2008 and 2015, over 1000 youths in the State were trained and empowered in modern agricultural rice farming techniques process.

While saying that the training process includes, Production, Processing and packaging of EKO OFADA Rice and EKO Rice, the Special Adviser hinted that the success of the Programme has led to the establishment of the first Integrated Rice Mill in South Western Nigeria at Imota with the production capacity of about 12,000 tons annually.

In his words: “The Imota Rice mill has 2 lines of 16metric tones per hour, which after completed will produce about 2.4 million 50kg bags of Rice. This will require over 200,000 tons of paddy which will be cultivated over 60,000Ha of Paddy field with single cropping.

“This, therefore, calls for huge investment in paddy aggregation, rice production technology, extension services, land opening and mechanization of the production processes as the Imota Rice mill has been planned to commence production by the end of the year.”

Also speaking at the event, the Honourable Commissioner for Agriculture, Ms Abisola Olusanya, implored the beneficiaries to ensure they put to practice all knowledge impacted on them during the training.

She said though the empowerment has not covered all rice farmers in the State yet, it will do a lot to assist the farmers on their various farms.

She said the Knapsack Sprayer, Fertilizer and Faro 44 Rice Seedlings they were empowered with will assist them to a large extent if they follow all they have learnt at the training, adding that the Lagos State Government is ready to buy their paddy from them.

The Chairman, House Committee on Agriculture, Honourable Kehinde Joseph during his goodwill message to the beneficiaries, implored the 500 beneficiaries never to let the Lagos State Government down but ensure they perform beyond expectations by setting the International standards in their produce.

He disclosed that for every single beneficiary empowered that means the government has empowered four or five persons in a family.

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The PDP spokesman recalled how the opposition party had on various occasions alerted that the APC government had ceded sovereignty over a large portion of our country to terrorists, “many of whom were imported into our country by the APC.”

He further stated: “From the video, in a brazen manner, terrorists as non-state actors boldly showed their faces, boasting, admitting and confirming their participation in the Kuje Prison break, some of whom were former prison inmates who were either jailed or awaiting trial for their previous terrorism act against our country.

“Nigerians can equally recall the confession by the Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai that the APC government knows the plans and whereabouts of the terrorists but failed to act.

According to Ologunagba, about 18,000 Nigerians have been killed by terrorists between 2020 and 2022 “as the criminals continue to be emboldened by the failures and obvious complicity of the APC and to which the PDP had always drawn attention.”

“This is not politics; this is about humanity and leadership, which leadership sadly and unfortunately is missing in our country at this time,” he said.

The PDP added that it is appalled by “the lame response by the apparently helpless, clueless and deflated Buhari Presidency, wherein it told an agonizing nation that President Buhari “has done all and even more than what was expected of him as Commander in Chief by way of morale, material and equipment support to the military…”

“This is a direct admission of incapacity and failure by the Buhari Presidency and the APC. At such a time, in other climes, the President directly leads the charge and takes drastic measures to rescue and protect his citizens.

“In time of adversity, the President transmutes into Consoler-in-Chief to give hope and succour to the citizens. Painfully, Nigeria does not have a President who cares and can stand as Consoler-in-Chief to the citizens.

“It has now become very imperative for Nigerians to take note and realize that the only solution to this unfortunate situation is to hold the APC government accountable. We must come together as a people, irrespective of our political, ethnic and religious affiliations to resist the fascist-leaning tendencies of the APC administration.

Ologunagba called for an urgent meeting of the National Council of State to advise on the way to go over the nation’s worsening insecurity.

“Our nation must not fall. The resilient Nigerian spirit and ‘can-do- attitude’ must be rekindled by all to prevail on the President to immediately and without further delay, accede to the demand by the PDP and other well-meaning Nigerians to convene a special session of the National Council of State to find a lasting solution since the President has, in his own admission, come to his wit’s end,” the PDP spokesman declared.

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