Lagos State Government has acquired 84 hectares of land in Osogbo, Osun State with the aim of cultivating various types of crops to produce food to meet the immediate needs of the residents of the State, the State Commissioner for Agriculture, Prince Gbolahan Lawal has disclosed.
The Commissioner who disclosed in Lagos noted that the Osogbo Farms will also serves as the aggregation center for the State Government’s collaborative efforts with the DAWN States exporting to other State of federation and countries.
He noted that the Osogbo Farm would also forestall shortage of food as well as ensure food security for the ever increasing population of the State bearing in mind that the State is a coastal State with limited land for agricultural purposes.
“Lagos State with a population in excess of 21 Million people and a daily influx of people from diverse places has serious agricultural land constraints and being a coastal State, the availability land for agriculture has been drastically reduced due to urbanization,” Prince Lawal averred.
The Commissioner explained that the State Government intends to build another abattoir along the Epe-Lekki Corridor that will cater for the meat needs of people in that axis of the State bearing in mind the expected increase in activities as a result of the impending Lekki Free Trade Zone.
He hinted of plans to put in place an Agric Business Application that would not only monetized every things that are done in the Ministry but would also support the value chain platform by aggregating everything and everybody along the Value Chain in the State.
According to the Commissioner, the Agribusiness App is a viable strategy that would transform the agriculture sector by smothering the ways for both old and new as well as young farmers’ entrants in an environment where start ups can be nurtured and allowed to flourish.
“Some of the objectives of the App are that it will groom start up entrepreneurs, small and medium enterprises and agro tech innovators among others in addition to promoting the establishment of agribusiness ventures through a vast pool of commercialisable agro technology from the research and development institutes,” he said.
