Lagos Moves To Boost Agriculture

Undoubtedly, the biggest consumer of agricultural produce in the West African sub-region is Lagos State, southwest Nigeria. With a population estimated at 20 million people, Lagos is readily the biggest market for agricultural produce. What is baffling, however, is that most of the agricultural products consumed in the metropolis is imported from outside the state.

To put the entire repositioning drive into context, it is currently estimated that the State’s daily food bill is between N3billion ($19million) and N5billion ($31million) with a significant part of this ending up outside the State. By 2015, the Lagos State Government targets 25 per cent food production to cut down on importation of food to the state.

One of the strategies adopted to achieve this goal is the Strategic Programme for Accelerated Agricultural Growth, SPAAG. The primary focus of SPAAG is to increase agricultural productivity and reduce dependence on imported food.

According to the Commissioner for Agriculture and Cooperatives, Prince Gbolahan Lawal, “we believe and expect that SPAAG will bring along secondary spin-off effects in the areas of employment creation and the elimination of inefficiencies across produce value chains arising from administrative bureaucracies, logistic difficulties and post-harvest losses. It is also our firm belief that SPAAG will reposition the State’s agricultural sector in the long term and in the process help to diversify the economy and revenue base of Lagos.

“The shortcomings of our agricultural sector are well documented but this government remains fully committed in ensuring that Lagosians have unhindered access to affordable quality food and agricultural produce. It is based on this conviction of purpose that agriculture featured prominently at the just concluded Ehingbeti 2012 Lagos Economic Summit which focused on the PATH, an acronym for Power, Agriculture, Transportation and Housing.

“The farm-to-fork policy thrust of SPAAG is best presented through the six-institutional framework, which essentially describes the interplay of six major factors that influence and will ultimately determine the success of our repositioning drive. These factors include: incentives for farm production; input for production; innovation, such as using technology to increase productivity; infrastructure, such as power, roads, mechanization, processing, storage and distribution; institution, such as linkage with credit, market land, insurance and investment, such as opportunities in poultry, vegetable, pig, fish, cassava, coconut and rice.”

“A word of caution, however, in that SPAAG is no magic wand; it will only be effective by focusing on the areas where Lagos has comparative, competitive, ecological and social-economic advantages such as fisheries, livestock and vegetable production as well as agro-processing with emphasis on rice and cassava. This is the approach the ministry has adopted in its mission to transform agriculture within the state. Additionally, for even better effectiveness, the implementation of SPAAG has also been aligned with the Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA) of the Federal Government of Nigeria,” he added.

In the last one month, the Lagos State government has implemented strategies to boost rice and poultry production. With the commissioning of the Imota Rice Mill, Lagos will now produce 20,000 metric tons of rice annually, but the consumption level of the state in terms of rice production annually is 600,000 metric tons. Before now, the state produced a paltry 500 tons of rice per annum.

According to Lawal, it is based on SPAAG that the government decided to  prioritise rice production given the ever-growing supply gap and other fundamental distortions within the rice value chain.

“Lagos produces a paltry 500 tons of the 600,000 metric tons consumed annually in the state. This means that Lagos and by extension, Nigeria depends largely on the rice exporting nations of Thailand and Pakistan for rice, a situation which significantly increases our food security risk level because not only are these nations in a relative position of strength, we have become very vulnerable to otherwise remote risk factors that should ordinarily not affect our consumption of rice such as adverse weather conditions in the exporting countries, their macro-economic policies and regulatory policies and procedures. In other words flooding in Thailand should not determine the price of rice in Lagos.

“In view of the foregoing, coupled with the fact that the whole of South West Nigeria has no functional rice factory, the State has decided to set the pace with an Integrated Rice Factory for price stability and food security. This factory was built with Korean technology to the highest technological and operational standards to process 20,000 tonnes of paddy rice per annum with additional 10,000-ton storage facility for rice paddy and 45,000-ton capacity storage for finished rice.

“We have completed the test run of the factory and are pleased to report that the main product (well polished rice) compares favourably with the best quality rice from any part of the world. Operating optimally, the rice mill is estimated to produce between 350,000 and 400,000 bags of rice per year,” he stated.

According to Governor Babatunde Fashola, the rice mill story started four years ago when he was sworn into office and he was informed that the rice production capacity of the state yearly is 30 hectares. He added that through sustained efforts spread over two and half years, it was increased to 250 hectares, adding that government was also concerned about embarking upon strategic irrigation to keep the farm wet always.

“We resolved to do 500 hectares per annum but we were now told, if you do this, how do you process it? So, we decided in 2011 to building this processing mill before we increase production so that there will be no wastages when we achieve increase production. But also we had a problem of yield per hectare. We are doing average of one ton per hectare and we want to go to at least two hectares and progress from there. So, in Araga, Badagry, we are doing a strategic irrigation intervention that will keep the field land wet all through the year with water to grow the rice. In addition we have also written to the minister of agric to give us land in the River Basin Authority. I am made to understand that that request is receiving favourable consideration,” he stated.

The Governor charged all business-minded Nigerians to look towards the prospect that existed with the rice that would be cultivated in Ogun State but transported to Lagos, adding that all those who were making okada riding a way of life now should think of embracing the business of driving farm trucks to convey the rice.

Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Dr. Bashorun Olajide said the state had acquired land in Ogun, Oyo, Osun and Ekiti States for rice production, adding that at the end of the season, the state would harvest 10,000 tons of rice from these four states to feed the Lagos populace. He added that the Lagos brand of rice would be known as Eko Rice.

Another area being explored by the state government to boost agriculture is poultry production. In the last one month, the government commissioned the 10,000 birds capacity Mechanised Broiler House; 2,000 birds capacity per day processing mill and 1.5Ha Feedmill per hour at the Poultry Estate, Erikorodo, Ikorodu, fully funded by the state government. A 4.65km network access farm road at Ikorodu Fish Farm Estate that was jointly funded under the assisted World Bank Commercial Agricultural Development Project, CADP and counterpart fund from the Lagos State Government was also commissioned by Fashola.

According to the Agriculture and Cooperatives Commissioner, the Erikorodo Poultry Estate was one of the five farm estates located in different parts of the state to bring about self-sufficiency in chicken production.

“Lagos currently consumes about 210,000 metric tons of chicken every year. To complement the poultry farm estates, there is a 2,000-bird capacity processing plant and a 10,000-bird capacity broiler house. Other estate initiatives include Vegetable Estate Iyaafin Badagry; Fish Farm Estate Ketu-Ereyun Epe; Arable Crops Estate Agbowa Epe and Piggery Estate Gberigbe Ikorodu.

“The Poultry Estate is expected to produce about one million eggs and 600,000 live birds annually. The estate has been allocated to 137 poultry farmers and we are convinced this initiative will go a long way in addressing the huge shortage of chicken in the state.

“Our collaboration with the Federal Government and the World Bank in the Commercial Agricultural Development Projects (CADP) has continued on a fruitful path especially in the areas of improving the business environment for agriculture by assisting participating small and medium scale commercial farmers to the market,” he stated.

“Since the inception of CADP, the Ministry has made significant investments in road and associated transportation logistics to enable farmers get their produce to the market more efficiently. We have successfully rehabilitated 22.5km of rural access roads spread over 10 communities in the State. We have also completed the installation of transformers in 10 additional communities to underscore our total commitment to the promotion of agro industrial development in the State. The roads will improve supply of inputs and evacuation of farm produce,” he added.

On poultry, Fashola said the government had intervened in giving land to about 136 poultry farmers with the opening of a broiler house where10,000 birds are processed, adding that: “We also opened a feed mill that will serve all the farmers in the poultry estate so that the mill is being produced there and the chicks are also produced there. We also have a feed mill and a processing plant where all the chicken can get to the consumers after being cleaned.

“This is a fully integrated poultry estate. This is government intervention to provide a breeding facility for 10,000 broilers per day, to provide also a feed mill to produce all the feed to support all the farmers in this estate and I believe there are 137 farmers here and also a processing facility to process all your chicks, clean them, package them, freeze them and get them ready for delivery to the market. We will walk our talk and give every support to anybody who takes farming seriously.”

—Kazeem Ugbodaga