Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has
beamed a special focus on Badagry, one of the five traditional
divisions of the State whose mainstay is agriculture and
fishing.
The Governor’s pilot agriculture scheme – Lagos Food Production
Park – is to take off in Badagry, prompting Sanwo-Olu’s six-hour
visit to the town on Friday.
The Governor took a tour of a 279-hectare Avia-Igborosun Organic
Farm, which was acquired by the State Government in 2012 for some
commercial agricultural projects. He said the Government was ready
to revive the abandoned farmland for the take-off of the State’s
Food Production Park project.
The Governor disclosed that the State would be engaging the
private sector to secure investment into the project, which, when
completed, he said, would create thousands of direct jobs and
improve the wellbeing of the residents.
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Sanwo-Olu said: “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 an 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
like 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. The 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 put already in place. We will complete
the project and open it for commercial production.”
The Governor said the revival of the Badagry Organic Farm and
creation of more food production parks across the State were part
of the strategy designed by his Government to increase food
security level from 20 per cent to 50 per cent, thereby raising
Lagos’ food sufficiency.
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He 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.
He said: “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 Park, which we are creating across the State, will
be a trigger to other value-added agricultural production our
citizens can provide.”
As part of the move to turn around the Organic Farm, Sanwo-Olu
promised a total rehabilitation of Igborosun Road that leads to the
farm.
Some of the agricultural projects to be developed for commercial
production in the Organic Farm include fishing, poultry, piggery,
and agro-forestry, among others.
Gov. Sanwo-Olu also inspected a 105-bed Mother and Child Care
(MCC) recently completed by the State Government in the premises of
Badagry General Hospital. The MCC will be commissioned in
September, the Governor promised.
During a tour of the hospital, Sanwo-Olu proposed expansion of
the Accident and Emergency Department. The project, he said, will
take off in the next nine months.
The Governor also stopped at Marina area of the Badagry town,
where the State Government will be building a modern jetty. The
project, Sanwo-Olu said, is part of his administration’s blueprint
to promote waterways transportation across the State.