Stakeholders ponder on developing transformative strategies for food systems

STAKEHOLDERS in the agricultural sector in the South West geopolitical zone gathered in Lagos state to discuss and brainstorm on game-changing strategies for transforming the nation’s food system.

The meeting tagged: The south-West sensitisation workshop on the implementation of food systems transformation pathways had Representatives from all the southwest states, representatives from the United Nations, and FAO, among others.

Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who was represented by Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, Sam Egube, appreciated the efforts of the Federal Government of Nigeria on her unrelenting efforts to ensure that the Food Systems Summit in conjunction with the United Nations is developed to guide governments and other stakeholders to identify and implement reforms that would transform food systems towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The governor noted that the State has a rich history of economic growth and transformation and that although it covers only 0.4 per cent of Nigeria’s territorial land mass making it the smallest state in the country, it accounts for over 60 per cent of its industrial and commercial activities.

“Lagos is a coastal State and has an extremely limited arable land space and is home to about 21 million people; its residents consume about N4.5 billion worth of food daily and several billions in other trading activities with markets cutting across all the LGAs in the State offering a broad and diverse range of foodstuff and livestock.

Speaking further he said that the Lagos State Agricultural and Food Systems Roadmap is a deliberate effort to develop the agricultural sector by way of interventions from the public and private sector, as well as, international technical and donor organizations where it has competitive and comparative advantages towards enhancing the States self-sufficiency in food production.

“Our aim is to make the entire agricultural sector more attractive and for core investors to be the main drivers.

Permanent Secretary/National Convenor, Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning (Budget and Planning Arm), Olusola Idowu, while speaking said that the same workshop is being held in all six geopolitical zones concurrently.

She said during the National Food Summit Dialogues, about 40 Exploratory Dialogues were organized across the six geopolitical zones, in some selected States and targeted communities.

She said that the purpose of the dialogue was to harvest ideas and come up with recommendations/ solutions to food challenges with a view to changing the narrative of food and nutrition in Nigeria.

“The recommendations drawn from the various dialogues were further synthesized into short, medium and long-term priority actions for sustainable food systems in Nigeria. This was submitted to the United Nation and for ease of reference has been printed into a booklet.

Commissioner for Agriculture, Abisola Olusanya, earlier in her welcome address said that the summit is primarily put in place to seek modalities and strategies to assist governments and other stakeholders in identifying and implementing food system reforms in order to achieve the SDGs.

She said food systems are an important part of the national economy and have contributed to a variety of solutions to developmental challenges.

“Consequently, improving Food systems may help solve a number of issues common to most developing countries such as food insecurity, and unemployment.

“Lagos State is not an exception to this as Agricultural and Food Value Chains provide for approximately more than 40 per cent of the economically productive people.

“This and other reasons are why the United Nations called for the Food System Summit so as to strengthen food systems because it occupies a very position in contributing immensely to achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) efficiently and effectively,” she added.

In his goodwill message, UN Resident Coordinator in Nigeria, Mathias Schmale, who was represented by Isiaka Ibrahim, National Nutrition and Food System Specialist FAO said one overarching issue for the summit was to develop game-changing strategies for a dramatic transformation of food systems that achieve healthy, sustainable diets that are produced with equitable access, and that preserve or regenerate the environment.

“To implement the post-summit resolutions the Federal Government called for national dialogues in coordination with the UN family. Specific, actionable, multi-stakeholder inputs priorities, challenges, and opportunities were agreed upon to redesign Nigerian food systems at both national and sub-national levels.

“Today marks another important step in the highly anticipated transformational change we have worked for in partnership. The zonal sensitisation workshop is designed to onboard all of us as we begin to bring synergy across states and regions

“The momentum at which the Federal Government is accelerating the national food systems transformation pathways is highly commendable, as is their implementation of all 80 recommendations from the national dialogue” he added.