Lagos repositions agric ministry to tackle surging food prices

Lagos state government is implementing measures to address the rising cost of food prices and build a proper reserve management system in the state.

This comes following the rebranding of the Ministry of Agriculture to Ministry of Agriculture and Food Systems.

Abisola Olusanya, commissioner for Agriculture and Food Systems while speaking during the official rebranding of the ministry said that the essence is to review the activities of the Ministry and periscope ahead for a better performance towards managing the current food crisis and ensuring food sufficiency in Lagos.

Olusanya said that food production is an entire system that accommodates numerous activities and Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s administration is leveraging on quality partnership to drive this process.

“Food as we all know is essentially the bottom line of all that we do as a Ministry which cuts across several activities, from storage, processing, logistics, preservation to packaging and that Agriculture encompasses a lot more than just production,” she said.

“A lot is happening behind the scene to ensure that in terms of pricing of food we are able to bring it down and the inclusion of Food Systems is a process towards achieving this feat.”

The commissioner also mentioned that the Ministry will be having the addition of three departments; namely, department of livestock services, agricultural engineering department and agricultural produce safety and quality control department.

According to her, the state government is constructing a feedlot and that Lagos is known as the hub not just for marketing of food but remains epicenter where livestock are sold, processed and consumed.

“We procured tractors and other implement as far back as 2021 during our Enterprise Activation Program. We have been utilizing them and we will be adding more to the fleet and because of the partnership with the sister states,” the commissioner said.

“There will be a lot more investment around mechanisation to increase crop production and for that reason it was essential to create the departments. The Produce Safety and Quality Control department will help ensure safety of the large quantity of food being consumed in Lagos,” she added.

Olusanya maintained that the five Year Agricultural and Food Systems Road Map launched in 2021 highlighted projects and programmes which centered around issues of domestic self-sufficiency, upcountry partnership, storage processes and logistics capacity development as well as modern food market, stressing that the state will be working in that direction going forward.

She added that the harmonisation of farmers’ data base has assisted greatly to extend adequate support to the farmers in clusters, thereby increasing food production and reducing food prices.

“We have farmers cutting across poultry, fisheries, vegetable, piggery, rice, because Lagos had competitive advantage on this areas and when you consider the population you will see that it is for us to do precision support, and it would help us to engage the farmers and enhance their capacity.”

“What we are looking at is to support the clusters where these farmers reside so as to increase food production.

The commissioner mentioned that the state is stronger in the area of processing and marketing and it must strengthen its upstream capacity where the production happens by expanding on processing capabilities in order to help reduce food prices across board and for the nation.

While speaking on the impact of the Middle -level Agro produce platform at Mushin area of the state, Olusanya hinted that the Food hub has in the last 40 market sales recorded transactions of food worth over 918 million naira with 339 vendors selling goods at the Hub free of charge. The data was seamlessly retrieved because the market is in a controlled environment.

“For the first time we can give data around quantity of specific food items coming into a market, we can tell you who is selling what and we can give a price that which they are selling. And to understand all of these, it actually helps to address challenges we see across board. To ensure food quality, safety, and food pricing a new department, Produce Safety and quality control has been created to deliver value to Lagosians”.

She also engaged the journalists on the fair distribution of food palliatives to the indigent people of the state among others interventions to come in the coming years.