FEMI AKINOLA
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Lagos State Government has solicited for understanding of residents in the megacity for the high cost of a bag of Lagos Rice which sold for N52,000 in the open market. The government blamed the high price on high cost of production in the State’s Agric Value Chain.
The Special Adviser to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Dr. Oluwarotimi Fashola, solicited people’s understanding during the Lagos Food Systems Stakeholder’s forum held at the Alausa Secretriat, the seat of the state government. The stakeholder’s forum is meant to provide a platform for collective sharing of ideas on what should the focus of the Ministry of Agriculture and Co-operatives for the year.
While addressing participants at the forum, Fashola gave insight into high cost of producing Lagos Rice particularly where rice packaging activities at the Imota Rice Mill in the suburb of Lagos is wholly dependent on electricity from the national grid while the mill consumed high level of electricity. He expressed optimism that the Imota Rice Mill will have its own alternative power supply and assured that if the target become a reality, it would reflect on the price of Lagos Rice in the market.
The Special Adviser on Agriculture hinted that the state government is not relenting in strategising on how to bring about reduction in the cost of food items particularly rice which was being consumed daily by the teeming population in the state. Part of the strategy already embarked on according to Fashola was the ongoing engagement with Kebbi and Niger State respectively, to purchase paddy directly from both states in the northern part of the country, aside other logistics that goes into rice production.
Towing the same line of thought, Chairman Lagos State House of Assembly on Agriculture, Hon. Emmanuel Olotu, decried cost of production of agricultural items noting that the goal of the state government on food items
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is to reduce their prices and make foodstuffs available in large quantity to the residents of Lagos.
Olotu explained further that he welcome the idea of reduction in the costs of foodstuffs and making different kinds of food items available in abundnce in the city state because Lagos is home to all. He however urged all stakeholders in Agriculture sector in the state to collaborate with the state government to ensure robust system towards unlocking the potentials in the Agricultural sector of the state.
In her address during the stakeholder’s forum, Commssioner for Agriculture and Co-operatives, Ms. Abisola Olusanya reiterated Lagos State Government’s commitment in achieving 40 percent food self-sufficiency in the state next year through the State’s Agricultural andFood System Roadmap (2021-2025) which was put in place to increase local food production in Lagos State.
Olusanya explained that since the commencement of the initiative in 2021 under the leadership of Governor Babatunde Sanwo-Olu, a lot of Agricultural development activities has been going on behind the scene to give perceptible deliverables to the people of Lagos. She sid the current government in Lagos does not believe in talking the talk without walking the talk.
According to the Commissioner, so far from 2021, Lagos State has succeeded in implementing numerous Agricultural development projects and programmes to tackle hunger, malnutrition, unemployment and boost food production as well as food supply systems, whichis, in line with the State Agricultural and Food System Roadmap 2021 -2025.
Olusanya listed Agricultural programmes that have been implemented under the Roadmap to include Lagos Agripreneurship Programme (LAP) and Women In Agriculture (WAI) and Nutrition, and others like Lagos State Food Market System Transportaion Programme aimed at addressing the fast changing global supply chain ecosystem introduced in 2023. All these have created direct and indirect employment opportunities for thousands of people in the Agric sector across the state, Olusanya noted.
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