Lagos set to launch 5-year Agricultural development roadmap

Lagos State government set to launch a 5-year Agricultural development roadmap, come Thursday, 22, April 2021, in line with its themes developmental agenda.

The State Commissioner for Agriculture, Ms Abisola Olusanya, made this known in a statement made available to newsmen, saying that Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu would be doing the launching.

The commissioner explained that the roadmap would help the state achieve its goal of making Lagos a 21st Century Economy, pointing out that the roadmap is focused on the development of agricultural value chains where the state had competitive and comparative advantages to ensure that Lagos attained its food security goals.

According to her, the roadmap is to ensure that the state’s self-sufficiency in food production moves from 18 per cent to 40per cent of food needs in the next five years and thus ensure that Lagos achieves the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as it relates to the sector.

“I am delighted to address you today and avail you of the forthcoming launch of the 5-year Agricultural Development Roadmap for the ministry which is slated for launch by the state governor, Mr Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu next week Thursday.

“The Agricultural Development Roadmap was conceived by the Ministry of Agriculture as a direct outcome of the present administration’s Themes developmental agenda particularly the 4th pillar of making Lagos State a 21st Century Economy by ensuring that the Agricultural Sector plays the role of ensuring sustainable food security.

“Its focus is on the development of agricultural value chains where the state has competitive and comparative advantages to ensure that the state’s self-sufficiency in food production moves from 18% to 40% of food needs in the next five years and thus ensure that Lagos State achieves the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as it relates to the sector,” Olusanya said.

Speaking further, the commissioner disclosed that the Roadmap highlights intervention areas by the ministry to boost agricultural productivity at the upstream, midstream and downstream sectors of seven value chains and services bearing in mind the comparative advantages Lagos State had in these sectors.

She added that it also highlights the need for the state government to partner and collaborate with private investors and relevant authorities in improving the environment through proper waste management as well as relocation and upgrading of service centres such as sawmill and open markets in the state.

Olusanya, while recalling that the policy focus at the inception of the State’s Ministry of Agriculture was on direct production of Agricultural produce, said the policy thrust, over the years, changed from direct production to provision of a conducive environment for the private sector investment.

She said the state government had painstakingly prepared the strategic plan to collaborate and partner with stakeholders in the intervention areas such as policy review, formulation and implementation, database collation and upgrade, as well as repositioning of agencies and departments of her ministry in order to achieve these goals.

“In adopting the five-year strategy, it is our belief that it will boost food production and drastically reduce post-harvest losses thus encouraging private sector investments that would trigger agricultural transformation in the Southwestern states following the examples of countries such as Kenya, Malawi, China among others who within a 10-year period made a significant reduction in the poverty level through Agricultural development,” the commissioner stated.

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