Abisola Olusanya Archives - Phenomenal

Lagos govt gives one year agric scorecard, projections

Phenomenal — Tue, 07 May 2024 21:46:58 +0000

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The Lagos State Government has reiterated its commitment to the creation of six additional Central Food Systems and Logistics hubs in the state.

These are to be located in Ketu, Ereyun, Epe, Agege, Opebi and Ikorodu, to ensure food security for residents in the state.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the first market hub was commissioned at Mushin, Idi-Oro on Dec. 18, 2023.

The Commissioner for Agriculture, Mrs Abisola Olusanya, disclosed the state’s plans on Tuesday during the 2024 Ministerial Press Briefing, at Alausa, Ikeja, to mark the first year of Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s second term in office.

She also said the government was committed to achieving the aims of its development of a five-year Agricultural and Food Systems Roadmap (2021-2025) as well as the Food Security Systems Policy Document.

Olusanya said that the state government trained 51,676 Lagos residents in agripreneurship skills, across all departments/agencies/projects/ value chains of interest.

She reeled out some other achievements of the Gov. Sanwo-Olu-led administration.

“Over 2,713 traders and butchers from major markets across the state participated in various capacity building programmes.

“The overarching goal of the training is to entrench good practices, proper food storage and presentation and promote the hub,” she said

She recalled the Lagos Market Trader Money where the sum of N50,000 was given to 15,000 market men and women to augment their buying power.

“It aimed to increase their capital base, enhance profit and improve livelihoods.

“The beneficiaries were selected in collaboration with the 57 LGA/LCDA chairmen and market masters, as 250 beneficiaries were selected from each LGA/LCDA.

” Seven hundred and fifty beneficiaries from barracks (Military, Air Force, Naval, and Police) across the state were among those identified,” she said.

Olusanya said that the state government introduced the Agri-thon, which is an innovative platform.

The commissioner said that the platform blends young business owners and technologists to formulate and render the Lagos food systems concepts that embody the future of agriculture.

“AgriThon serves as a blithesome, explorative platform nurturing originative ideas affirming innovation,” she said.

Another milestone of the Ministry of Agriculture, Olusanya asserted, is the Agricultural Value Chains Enterprise Activation Programme.

She said it was designed to provide agricultural inputs and productive assets to agripreneurs in farming, artisanal fishing, aquaculture, agro-processing and marketing, with business activator/starter packs.

The commissioner said that this was done while nurturing existing agribusinesses into scalable profit-making and sustainable ventures.

She said it also opened new windows of opportunities for active youth development.

Olusanya also mentioned among other achievements of the agriculture ministry, the production of coconut seedlings.

She said this was to enhance local coconut production by providing high-quality, disease-resistant coconut seedlings to farmers.

Olusanya said that Lagos State was the largest consumer of rice in the country, with an estimated consumption of about two million metric tonnes yearly.

She also said that the state government had supported more than 23,986 farmers, exceeding its target.

The commissioner said these included rice, fish and poultry farmers that had enjoyed collaboration with the state.

“The rice mill is part of government’s commitment towards ensuring food security in the state, which is a key component of the T.H.E.M.E.S + Development Agenda of Mr. Governor to make Lagos State a 21st Century economy.

“The Lagos Rice Mill is two lines of 16MTPH integrated mill sited on 8.5 hectares of land at Imota.

“The rice mill has a capacity to produce 2.4 million 50 kg bags of Rice yearly, using 200,000 Metric tonnes of paddy annually.

“The Mill is part of the government’s commitment towards ensuring food security in the state, which is a key component of the T.H.E.M.E.S + Development Agenda of Mr. Governor to make Lagos State a 21st Century economy.

“The Lagos State government has partnered with its Niger State counterpart on the ‘Produce for Lagos Initiative’ towards the supply of agricultural produce from Niger State to Lagos,” Olusanya said.

She also revealed that the state government was set to launch the Lagos Last Mile meat shops to bring the market closer to the people.

The commissioner said the unveiling of the shops and utilisation of new vans at Oko Oba abattoir would ensure availability of meat for residents and create market access.

She also advocated proper organisation of the markets in the state for data accuracy.

This, according to her, is the key solutions in addressing food security in the state, in order for potential investors to make use of available data to project a sustainable public private partnership.

LASG delivers smartfarms to schools

Phenomenal — Fri, 05 May 2023 20:23:24 +0000

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The Lagos State Government has urged secondary students in the state to embrace agriculture as a means of livelihood and for income generation.

Ms Abisola Olusanya, the State Commissioner for Agriculture, stated this during the handover of three smart farms to principals of three senior secondary schools on Friday in Lagos.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the beneficiaries include Lagos City Senior College, Sabo, Yaba; Igbobi College, Yaba and Omole Senior Grammar School, Ikeja.

NAN reports that the farms are smart aquaponics, aquaculture and poultry system units with hardware components under the Lagos Agric Scholar Programme.

Olusanya said that the students should not look at agriculture as an archaic profession but means where people are making huge income.

She said that the students must eat irrespective of what they wished to become in future noting that agriculture plays a vital role because without food they could not achieve their goals.

According to her, countries such as Botswana, U.S. and China are rooted in agriculture.

“As an engineer, a doctor, aeronautic engineer or neurosurgeon, whatever it is you want to become, you must eat.

“Even if you say you want to go on 30 days fast, no food, no water, you must break the fast with food.

“So, who is going to produce food if none of you is interested in agriculture, Where do you think your food will come from,” she asked.

The commissioner said that people should be involved in agriculture because of its importance.

“If you do your research today, the largest land holder in the U.S. is Bill Gate. He is buying off most of the farmlands and it is for a reason.

“The person that controls the food resort of the world will control the world.

“With Ukraine and Russia war, we know the effect on prices of bread in the market, because the wheat used in making bread comes from the eastern Europe,” she said.

Olusanya stressed that agriculture was indeed a profession where people are making huge money and urged the students to embrace it.

“If food sector is negatively impacted, it will return to haunt the doctor, aeronautic engineer, chief executive officer, surgeon and multi billion dollars investment,” she said.

The commissioner said that if there was food scarcity, many people would spend fortune to get it, and only those in the food space would have control of things

“So, we want you to be interested; don’t look at agriculture as a profession for illiterates, or for people that are old or jobless people.

“Some of the biggest businesses in the world are into agriculture,” she said.

Olusanya, however, said that the project was initiated to encourage students to develop interest in agriculture as a venture and not only as a subject.

She said that the farms were setup so that the students could see agriculture as a viable business.

She noted that the project was in collaboration with the ministry, Agrisiti and Corporate Farms, from the private sector.

“The School Agricultural Project-Sys units are solar-powered modern, innovative integrated farm technologies for rearing aquaculture, hydroponics and poultry.

“We are here today to handover the facilities to the school administrators to train the students.

“The fingerlings, birds and everything that have been put in place here, let it flourish.

“My prayer is that this edifice will not die and when we come back later, it would have grown bigger,” she said.

Olusanya disclosed that the government would replicate the project in over 300 secondary schools and primary schools in the state.

She said that extension officers and their partners would visit the farms every month to demonstrate new technology to the students.

She, however, commended the team at the ministry for their contribution to the success of the project.

“Agrisiti and Corporate Farmers are a crop of young and vibrant farmers with the energy, zeal and passion to transform agriculture in Nigeria.

“We are happy and proud to work with these young people to transform agriculture in Lagos,” she said.

Mr Oyewole Akintohude, representative of Agrisiti, said that the aquaculture consist of two fish ponds with 400 fingerlings, while the poultry was stocked with 60 birds and hydropohics.

Akintohude said that the farms had solar system, borehole water and generating set to perform optimally.

Also, Mr Adedotun Akanbi, Principal, Igbobi College, Yaba, commended the state government for choosing the school as one of those to benefit from the laudable project.

Akanbi said that the project was coming at a better time to train the students practical agriculture.

The Founder, Corporate Farmer, Mr Akin Alabi, said a comic book was created for students in 2020 on red meat value chain and rice, to educate them on the projects of the government and agric in general.

N6,000 daily cattle consumption: Lagos to build ranches

Phenomenal — Fri, 09 Apr 2021 11:30:09 +0000

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Lagos State Government has spotted a business opportunity in the volume of beef that Lagosians consume daily.
According to the Commissioner for Agriculture, Abisola Olusanya, the residents consume 6,000 cattle daily.

This, he said, has made the government seen the need to build ranches and make the process closer to the polity.

Speaking during an interview on Channels Television, the commissioner said:

“Lagos consumes well over 1.8 million heads of cattle on an annual basis. We consume over 6,000 heads of cattle on a daily basis.

“When you consider the transactional value alone for Lagos, it is over N328bn but we are producing nothing but what stops us from setting up ranches in this state?

“We are the largest market. It also makes sense that we set up ranches such that we are closer to market, we remove the logistics costs.

“We are actually working on that and we would be rolling out the Expression of Interest next week, calling on investors.”