The Lagos State Government says it planning to setup an e-commerce hub or platform for agriculture producers in the state to produce farm produce in hygienic condition for export purposes.
The State Acting Commissioner for Agriculture, Ms. Abisola Olusanya stated this during the inspection tour of venues of the Eko City Framers Market at St. Georges Primary School, Falomo, Lagos and Opebi Primary School, Opebi.
Olusanya said that the hub would be located in a central location where all the certification of produce would take place.
“We are trying to setup hubs or platforms where we are able to get our producers to come together to be able to produce in sanitary and hygienic condition for us to be able to get organisations like SON, NAFDAC to do a sort of assessment on the items been 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 Acting Commissioner noted.
She said the state government also trying to create an enabling environment for agric-business and producers to ensure the ease of the doing business in the 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 suppose to connect the producers to the consumers and whosoever want to buy along any value chain that exists already.
“We know that there are several other platforms as well, like oja.ng; we have food.ng and a lot of platforms exist already to try to connect producers to the consumers,” she opined.
Olusanya pointed out that the job of the State Government is to create the enabling environment to ensure that there is ease of doing business across board.
“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.
“We have the agric-business 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 setup already.
“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 and like I had said before we also trying to connect to the 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.
“Also, we have the Lagos State Entrepreneurship Programme (LAP), in Araga, we will be commencing with the next batch in August and part of their syllabus is the e-commerce section just to try to encourage them, that it is not just about physical interaction between yourself and the consumer or whosoever is buying.
“But to ensure that they can also setup e-commerce platforms they can sell regardless the time or the situation,” Olusanya said.
Also speaking, Mr Gbolahan Yishau, member of the Lagos State House of Assembly, representing Eti Osa Local Government, said that the state government has done a lot starting during the COVID-19 pandemic, though the pandemic is still on.
Yishau said the state government was ensuring that food gets to the residents which is why the eko city farmers market was established.
“On my part, what we have done is to empower people so that they can have the capacity to shop and buy whatever they need in their homes.
“So we brought vouchers to augment whatever they might have to come to the market with or even those who have nothing to shop with would be able to buy things.
“The farmers are also happy because we have created additional market for people to buy from them.
“I think it is a very good initiative, especially with the festivities coming up next week, so people can have food on their table which is a core thing during this pandemic.
“We have already given out some vouchers in the morning about 1000 people were given N1000 voucher and we are going to do more,” he said.
In a similar vein, the Executive Chairman, Onigbongbo Local Council Development Area, Mr. Francis Oke, lauded the initiative of the Ministry of Agriculture.
Oke said the market would ease the pressure of going to the open market to shop for their needs during the festival.
He said the market would be held for five days in the LCDA in order to give more people, more farmers, and producers to showcase their produce.
“This market is good for people that are preparing for the Ileya festival so that they can come here and buys whatever produce they want.
“You can see that the products here are cheaper than what we have in the open market.
“It is a good thing that we are having this kind of thing in Onigbongbo LCDA and we all welcome it because it is a good thing.
“At least, to reduce the stress and tension from our people from buying farm produce for the ileya festival.
“I have discussed with the Acting Commissioner that personally in Onigbongbo LCDA, we want a week long programme, not just one day and luckily for us, the Commissioner agreed that we should have it till Friday, August 31,” he said.
