Association Tasks LASG On Farmers’ Warehouse

The President of Ajara
Farm, Mr Mufutau Akinlolu, has appealed to the state government to provide a warehouse for farmers in the area.
Akinlolu told The Tide source that farmers would be more encouraged to produce more if they could have a storage facility for their farm produce during harvest.
“Such produce would be available for sale to the consumers nearly all the year round,” he said.
“One of our major challenges is that we lack a warehouse and this is making the storage of our farm produce really difficult after harvesting.
“For several years, we have been appealing to the government to provide us a warehouse to store our farm produce and boost agriculture in this area.
“Agricultural activities in the country are carried out by small scale farmers and government needed to encourage them by providing them with all the necessary tools, seedlings, pesticides and weed killers.
“Because of this situation, we are forced to sell our produce so cheaply to prevent them from getting spoilt and this does not pay us at all,” he said.
Akinlolu said that the National Food Reserve Agency (NFRA) initiated a Millennium Development Goal(MDG) project of building a warehouse in Badagry.
He, however, said that the building of the warehouse had been abandoned.
“The construction of the warehouse in Badagry had been abandoned for the past seven years after it reached the lintel level.
“Unfortunately, a section of the building had begun to collapse.
“If that structure can be completed, it will solve part of the problems we are currently facing,” he said.
He listed other challenges the farmers were facing as: encroachment onto their lands, inadequate tools amongst others.
“Apart from the lack of warehouse, we have issues of land encroachment and lack of modern day farming equipment and these have really limited our abilities to produce more,” he said.
He advised the government to invest more in agriculture to improve the economy of the state and the country.