Lagos to monitor agric investments, says commissioner

Agricultural investments will be monitored to track state support and hold everyone in the food value chain accountable, according to the Lagos State Commissioner for Agriculture, Abisola Olusanya.

The commissioner disclosed this Wednesday at the Agriculture & Allied Group 2024 Symposium/Fair organised by the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Lagos.

Olusanya said the Lagos State Government aimed to build the largest food logistics hubs and other middle-level hubs to enable it to trace food items.

She said that would enable the government to follow its investment to the market and not merely show yield outcomes.

“When we make support available, we should also trail the outcome for farmers, and not just show the outcome in terms of yields and quantities,” Olusanya remarked.

According to the commissioner, the agric ministry would learn which markets food produce is, their cost of production at origin points and what the landed cost will be at whatever destination markets they are.

“We should also start tracing the different distributors and dealers that are taking those products, and how much it has been sold to the average market woman and man.

“That way, it will help all of us to start to put accountability to everyone in the food value chain so that it is not that middlemen are making the most margins at the expense of farmers who put in the labour, the sweat and the tears, and yet make minimal margins, and therefore, are not incentivised to continue to produce,” she continued.

According to the Commissioner, the Lagos State Government opened the Mushin Fresh Food Hub in December 2023, which has allowed it to gather data to ensure proper food reserves in case of emergencies.

The LCCI President, Gabriel Idahosa, highlighted sectoral data, including food inflation, which was at 40.87 per cent in June and the skyrocketing of food-insecure Nigerians from 66.2 million in Q1 2023 to 100 million in Q1 2024.

Idahosa said, “Among these, 18.6 million are facing acute hunger. These figures are more than statistics; they represent millions of lives affected by hunger, malnutrition, and poverty. Unfortunately, we do not have the capacity to produce enough food to cater to the feeding needs of more than 230 million people.”

He commended the Federal Government’s import waivers on select food imports but urged deliberate efforts in building the capacity of local food producers to meet the demands of Nigerians.

“We must be diligent in our fiscal policy direction while we initiate specially targeted programmes for food production in Nigeria,” the LCCI president added.

SOURCE: PUNCH