The Lagos State Government has kicked off partnership programme with Niger and Kwara states towards bridging food supply-demand gaps under the Produce-4-Lagos initiative.

As a market-city State, Lagos is consumer-centric and requires large quantities of food to cater for its population’s needs.

Abisola Olusanya, the Lagos State Commissioner for Agriculture during a meeting with her counterparts, Commissioner for Agriculture & Rural Development, Kwara State, Oloruntoyosi Thomas and Commissioner for Industry, Trade, Investment and Private Sector Development, Niger State, Aminu Suleman Takuma at The Secretariat, Alausa, Ikeja assured of sustainability of the partnership stating that the governors of the respective states are already engaging but the meeting is to fine-tune and set the process in motion.

“President Tinubu made an executive order last year July around food security and he has lined up programmes to achieve this, particularly towards stemming the food inflation and ensuring youths are actively engaged in Agriculture and more importantly on how to scale food production.

“Kwara shares a border with Nigeria Niger, they have the land, people and capabilities to produce. This is an agenda that we have for a lot of states in Nigeria not just Kwara and Niger states”

She stressed that historically, Nigeria is an Agro producing nation before the strength dwindled and it became expedient to reinvigorate the production capability of the states across Nigeria and ensure they are living up to their potential in terms of food production.

“We understand our positioning as a state, which is the market for West Africa, so we are making efforts to ensure our people continue to get cheaper, wholesome and quality food and ensure the general prosperity and health of our citizenry.”

According to her “There is nothing you bring to Lagos that will not sell, from tubers, to grains, and perishables because there is a target audience for it. It is not so much about reinventing the wheel, there are markets in Lagos for food items that come into the state.

“This will mark the beginning of collaboration with other states and subsequently we should be able to see better food pricing, reduced post-harvest loss and wealth creation for our farmers and value chain actors through improved revenues.

The Kwara State Commissioner of Agriculture and Rural Development, Oloruntoyosi Thomas applauded the initiative which she described as a major milestone to boost agriculture in Nigeria, close the gaps of unemployment and increase food processing and production.

She said: “It is a way of bridging gaps and building communities and empowering our farmers and it is about ensuring that there is food security.