Lagos taps subsidy to support poultry, fish industries from collapse

…farmer gets 25% discount on feeds

In a move to support the poultry and fish industry from collapsing over rising operation costs, the Lagos State Government has launched the Ounje Eko Farmers Subsidy Programme to provide direct financial relief to farmers in the state through a 25 percent discount on feeds.

Abisola Olusanya, commissioner of Agriculture and Food Systems, disclosed this in a press conference on Wednesday at the Alausa, Ikeja.

Olusanya said the initiative will help poultry and fish farmers to sustain and improve their production levels while ensuring a steady supply of eggs, chicken and fish across markets in Lagos.

According to her, the Ounje Farmers Subsidy will prevent further poultry and fish farm closures and mitigate food insecurity while strengthening the agricultural value chains.

She stated that the costs of poultry and fish feeds have risen dramatically in the last three years and have forced several farmers to shut down operations.

To address the issue, she said the state government is providing support to farmers through the subsidy programme as the sectors are critical to food and nutrition security in Lagos.

“Last year we supported Lagosians due to the high costs of food, but there are people who produce these items that retailers and wholesalers sell in the market, and they are our farmers,” she said.

“If we don’t start from the ground up, everything we are trying to build at the top will eventually crash. We feel the need to give our farmers adequate support that is required,” she explained.

To do this, we have launched the Ounje Farmers Subsidy programme and N500 million has been provided for the intervention, the commissioner said.

She explains that the subsidy intervention differs from previous strategies that support farmers through the distribution of free inputs, which she noted has led to diversion and inefficiencies.

She stressed that the subsidy model will ensure accountability, proper targeting and sustainable impact as each farmer commits 75 percent of the cost to purchase feeds and the state government provides the remaining 25 percent.

The commissioner said that the model will help cut out farmers that usually collect free inputs distributed to sell, noting that with collaboration from poultry and fish farmers associations in the state, only genuine farmers will benefit from the programme.

According to her, it is a pre-order system where the leadership of the various farmer associations will confirm that the farmer making the order is indeed a poultry or fish farmer and that there is a maximum each farmer can buy.

The farmers’ subsidy programme will run every Wednesday from next week with only 1,000 farmers weekly and each poultry farmer purchasing a maximum of 28 bags of layers mash and fish farmer – 10 bags of feed (3 and 4mm).

Speaking on the impact, she said the intervention will support farmers to drive down their production costs which in turn will help lower food prices.

“Cost of eggs, and fish will come down and Lagosians will see the benefits of all that we are doing.” “We want to be able to modulate prices in a way and manner that to all Lagosians they see the benefit of what we do on farmers’ behalf.”

She noted that there will be effective monitoring and off-take from farmers at competitive prices which will be distributed across markets in the states to wholesalers.

For horticulture farmers under the subsidy programme, she said tractorisation services will be provided for crop production as well as distribution of bags of fertilizers gotten from the federal government.