Lagos empowers farmers, creates e-commerce hub for agripreneurs

*Agric Ministry to collaborate with Science & Technology to develop an app-tech hub for youths to evolve innovative solutions in agriculture and connect to consumers ─Commissioner

Isola Moses | ConsumerConnect

In maximising the benefits of agribusiness and empowering more farmers to create wealth in the state, the Lagos State Government (LASG) has announced plans to set up an e-commerce hub or platform for farmers and producers to process produce in a sanitary and hygienic condition for exports.

Ms. Abisola Olusanya, Acting Commissioner for Agriculture in Lagos State, disclosed this on the inspection tour of venues of the Eko City Farmers Market, Ileya Edition, at St. Georges Primary School, Falomo, Lagos and Opebi Primary School, Opebi.

Olusanya said that the proposed hub would be located in a central location where all the certification of produce would take place, says agency report.

The Acting Commissioner for Agriculture stated that the ministry is trying to connect with the Ministry of Science and Technology to develop an app-tech hub towards encouraging the youth to actually bring innovative solutions to bear in the agricultural sector of the economy.

She said: “We are trying to set up hubs or platforms where we will be able to get our producers to come together and be able to produce in sanitary and hygienic condition for export opportunities.

“We will get organisations like SON, NAFDAC to do a sort of assessment on the items produced for us to be able to export.

“Essentially, we want to be able to make it easier for our producers to be able to produce in a way that they do not have to go through many channels to certify their products.

“We want to make our certification take place in one location and then they can easily export.”

The state government, according to Olusanya, is also trying to create an enabling environment for agribusiness and producers to ensure the ease of the doing business in Lagos State.

“When you talk about app-tech and e-commerce, I think we have a platform for that in the Eko City Farmers Market, which is supposed to connect the producers to the consumers and whosoever wants to buy along any value chain that exists already.

“We know that there are several other platforms as well like oja.ng and we have food.ng and a lot of platforms exist already to try to connect producers to the consumers.

“I believe we are doing that and you can come to the Ministry of Agriculture if you need any resources, if you need any help and support, we are willing and glad to do that,” stated the Acting Commissioner.

She further noted that “we have the agribusiness department which actually has the mandate to be able to do farmer linkages to consumers, to farmers, to even the export community and to other stakeholders across the value chain. I believe that platform has been set up already.”

Olusanya said that the ministry would hold a virtual stakeholders’ engagement in August to find out activities in the agric space, challenges and how to mitigate them.

“In August, we will be having our stakeholders’ engagement virtual, just to try to see what is ongoing with terrain in the agric space and to be able to see whatever challenges they have and how we can mitigate all and be able to offer solutions to them.

“I believe in app-tech space, yes a lot will be done, a lot still need to be done.

“We are also trying to connect to our sister Ministry, which is the Ministry of Science and Technology to develop an app-tech hub to encourage the youth to actually bring innovative solution in the agric space, so we believe we are doing that,” she stated.

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