By Tanko Mohammed
Lagos state has decided to revive the 279-hectare erstwhile Songhai Food Production Centre now known as the Lagos Food Production Centre, Avia, Badagry.
The State Governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu Sanwo-Olu, who inspected the facilities said that the revival was necessary in preparation for the take-off of the state government’s two food centres.
The plan is to attain food sufficiency particularly for a population that was increasingly demanding.
The governor noted that reviving the 279-hectare centre which was originally acquired by the state government in 2012 for commercial agricultural project, would encourage organic farming using simple biological methods to enhance production outputs.
He said this was with a model based on new approaches and farming systems that rely heavily on the combined inputs from local experiences, indigenous technology, business communities and research institutions.
“I have been fully briefed about this project but I considered it necessary to personally embark on this journey to Badagry in order to take assessment and see what exactly we need to do in terms of intervention.
“After taking a tour of the project site, what I observed is that the entire project looks more as a job that has not been completed. Therefore, we need to improve on the interventions to the Ministry of Agriculture.
“With very minimal resources, we have seen what the ministry has done to keep the project afloat.
“Government will raise the resources and turn around this project to the level it should be.
“We will need to deploy more resources to revive and scale up all the machinery and systems already put in place. We will complete the project and open it for commercial production,” the governor said.
Sanwo-Olu said that focusing on local food production would increase agricultural production that would meet the food needs of the state’s growing population, transform agriculture to commercial and export oriented production.
He said that while at the same time, generating employment especially for the youth adding that some of the agricultural projects to be developed for commercial production in the centre include fishing, poultry, piggery and agro-forestry among others.
The governor noted that apart from delivering wholesome food items and training and creating employment for youths, the Lagos food production centre would also provide competitive inputs, raw materials for the Agro-Industry.
“This centre will provide new environmental products and services, and provide feed stock for renewable energy supply.
“Some of the objectives of the Lagos food production centre include production that delivers sufficient quantities of safe whole-some food items that assist in disease prevention, healthy living and healthy aging.
“Also, providing improved livelihood for the unemployed youths, reduction of dependency on other states to supply the food and fibre to be consumed by Lagosians and complementing the productivity of the ageing farmers which could not sustain or move the state to a comfortable level of self-sufficiency in food production.
“Also, providing competitive inputs/raw materials for the agro-Industry, providing feed stock for renewable energy supply, as well as providing new environmental products and services- carbon sequestration, Agro-Forestry, Biodiversity, native seeds and germ plasma, medical plants etc,” he said.
The Governor added that the project would give rise to similar agro-allied businesses that would open up Badagry’s economy for more growth while also boosting its tourism business.
“Lagos is a big state in terms of population, but we also can intervene in our food production value chain.
“What we are also trying to do with the revival of the project is that, we want to produce various agricultural products we can consume internally in order to reduce our dependence on external food sources.
“The food production centre, which we are creating across the state, will be a trigger to other value-added agricultural production our citizens can provide,” he said.
