– AS COUNCIL CHAIRMAN WANTS SUBSIDY ON AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS AND MECHANISMS.
Lawmakers of the Lagos State House of Assembly on Friday held simultaneous stakeholders’ meetings with their constituents with renewed commitments to boost food security and sufficiency in the state.
They also called for collaboration by the stakeholders to end food insecurity.
Speaking in his Agege Constituency 1, the Speaker of the House, Rt. Hon. Mudashiru Obasa, identified food insecurity as a multi-faceted challenge requiring the efforts of the government and the people to resolve.
This year’s stakeholders’ meeting is the ninth in the series and with the theme: ‘Ensuring Food Security for Sustainable Future: Youth Participation and Home-Grown Farming’.
Dr. Obasa said the Lagos Assembly is committed to ensuring food security in line with the United Nation’s sustainable development goals of eradication of poverty.
He listed some of the agricultural initiatives to include the setting up of the 34-hectare Ikorodu Fish Farm Estate which has the capacity to produce and process 10,000 tons of fish per year partnering with 400 fish farmers in the State.
He explained the AGRIC-YES programme and “the Oke-Aro and Gberigbe Pig Farm Estates currently partners with 1,200 farmers and have the capacity of housing and processing 88,000 mature pigs per annum.
“It is important to reiterate that, on our part as lawmakers, we have also created an enabling environment for farming activities to thrive in the state, particularly through the passage of anti-open grazing of livestock Law in September, 2021.”
In his opening remarks, the chairman of Agege Local Government Area, Ganiyu Egunjobi, identified insecurity and non-availability of low interest loan for the youth population as responsible for the food crisis.
“I want to suggest to the government at all levels to subsidise farming and also give loans at very low interest to farmers. The government should also improve on existing physical infrastructures in farming communities that would discourage urban migration and encourage youths to embrace farming. Farming and youth unemployment are recurring issues which require multidimensional interventions to tackle,” he said.
In his keynote address, Dr. Akinyemi Olusegun of the Lagos State Ministry of Agriculture, urged the youths and residents in the state to engage in urban farming.
