Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, on Monday, encouraged farmers in Lagos to work in partnership with their counterparts from other states in order to ensure food security in Nigeria.
Sanwo-Olu made the call at the grand finale of the 2023 World Food Day Celebrations, themed: “Water is life, water is food, leave no one behind,” which held at the Police College, Ikeja, Lagos.
He said his administration was committed to encouraging farmers and has put in place a plan to bring about infrastructure and funding to aid farmers and food sufficiency in the state.
“We know that the price of food has gone up; we have a robust integrated plan of ensuring that food sufficiency and food adequacy in Lagos is secured. Since food security globally is becoming an issue, as a government, we need to have a market for the farmers and we need to help our residents,” he added.
Sanwo-Olu said the celebration was to encourage farmers in the state, just as he stressed the importance of making food affordable and accessible to all.
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“The event is really to come out and encourage all our farmers and all the interventions they have, using the APPEALS project. They have added a lot of value and some of them are even for exports.”
The governor said his administration was building the largest food logistics hub in West Africa and that the phase one of the project would be commissioned next year to boost food sufficiency in Lagos.
Earlier, Abisola Olusanya, the commissioner for agriculture, said the day was set aside to encourage action on food insecurity, promote the production and consumption of safe food which have an immediate and long-term benefit on the people, the planet and the economy at large.
“This year’s edition with the theme, ‘water is life, water is food, leave no one behind,’ comes up in the wake of serious food security issues which requires urgent actions to scale production across the various value chains,’’ she said.
