The Lagos State Government has announced a strategic partnership to support young agribusiness owners’ efforts to promote increased food security and productivity in Africa’s most populous nation.

According to the state government, collaborations between corporations, the government, development partners, and civil society are increasingly important for enhancing market access and raising the nation’s agricultural output.

Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Systems, Lagos State, Abisola Olusanya, said the Agrinnovation Club aims to create a platform that exposes agripreneurs to several ideas, possibilities, and technologies through collaborations they couldn’t do independently.

“We understand the need to mentor and to partner, and as such, we in the Lagos Ministry of Agriculture and Food Systems created the Lagos Agrinnovation Club in 2013,” Olusanya said at the Agrinnovation Hangout 6.0, held recently in Lagos.

She noted that since its establishment, the Agrinnovation Club hangout membership has increased as businesses unite to support each other’s growth.

“We are growing stronger and stronger. Membership is increasing, but more importantly, seeing the cohesion happening across the ecosystem and seeing businesses come together to help one another grow,” she said.

“We are seeing the dividends of that. Many members are thriving. They are going into sections of the food space that otherwise they would not have been able to have their own,” she noted.

She stressed the need for collaboration across value chains, noting that players’ inability to harmonise data, efforts, technologies, and resources impedes agricultural development in the country.

“Imagine you have an agri-innovation club in Oyo, Zamfara and Nasarawa. And you have these clusters of cells of like-minded entrepreneurs coming together,” she emphasised.

According to her, the state held the Lagos Agri-Thon last year, tailored to the Lagos Agri-Innovation Club, where over N100 million was granted to 26 agribusinesses.

She explained that the state is in partnership talks with several organisations and multilateral and bilateral agencies to have a bigger pool of resources to support more agripreneurs.

“We want agriculture to be attractive to the youth as it is in Denmark. It is fancy to work in Denmark’s agricultural sector. It is respectful, passionate, and a structured, professionally trained way of working,” she added.

Also, Jette Bjerrum, consul general and head of trade at the Embassy of the Kingdom of Denmark, in her remarks, promised Denmark’s continuous support for agribusiness in Lagos and Nigeria.

Source: Business Day

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