Business
Lagos Opens Farm Centre To Boost Agric Dev
The Lagos State Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, has commissioned a farming service centre to provide information to farmers and stakeholders on farm processes.
The centre, which is situated at Oko-oba, Agege, Lagos, is aimed at serving farmers within and outside the state in the areas of entrepreneurial/training services; skill enhancement and capacity building programmes; sales of agricultural inputs; provision of market information; advisory services and climate change desk office with meteorology equipment.
The commissioner in charge of the ministry, Gbolahan Lawal, revealed that the Farm Service Centre was conceived out of the pressing need to expand the scope of support services to our farmers in a way that is consistent with how the government of Lagos typically resolves problems confronting the state.
He said that the centre is equipped with resource personnel and specialists from the ministry, adding that “this is how we intend to demonstrate our total commitment to the development of thriving agricultural communities that are knowledge-based, knowledge-driven and knowledge-led.”
“This will encourage and contribute significantly towards the overall development of our farmers, as their confidences will also uphold firmness in the sector”, he said.
According to him, “at the inception of this administration, Strategic Programme for Accelerated Agricultural Growth (SPAAG) policy was developed for the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives to ensure that the state’s food security goals are achieved, saying that, the policy is also designed to identify the lack of accurate, reliable and timely information to our farming communities and eject factors militating against the growth and development of the state’s agricultural sector”.
Meanwhile, economists suggest that information is the most critical factor of production whilst sociologists would readily assert that information is power, and for agriculture, information equally has a key role to play in determining its season and processes.
He continued, “the hallmark of the information age was the creation of a device, which empowered and enriched