Lagos State Government Thursday says it will continue to support the community-driven FADAMA Development Project Additional Financing (NFDP II AF) as it has close to three decades positively impacted on the lives of farmers in the State.
The State Acting Commissioner for Agriculture, Ms. Abisola Olusanya stated this today at the FADAMA Awards and Appreciation Day held at the Protea Hotel, Ikeja to celebrate its stakeholders who are at the forefront of improving the productivity of farmers in the State.
According to her, the FADAMA Project had always promoted social inclusion and ensured that grassroots farmers were empowered and subsequently contributed a lot to their standard of living in the rural and urban areas.
“I want to congratulate FADAMA for its positive impacts on the lives of Lagosians for close to three decades. Your achievements are enduring legacies, visible in all nooks and crannies of the State. The State Government has always been proud to be a part of your success stories given her investments and supports in making FADAMA a household name in the food security and community development space.
“The people of Lagos State appreciates your innumerable interventions and empowerments, community infrastructure, inputs and assets support, capacity building efforts amongst several others; and of course most importantly, your support at sustainably increasing beneficiaries’ improvement in their standard of living,” Olusanya noted.
The Acting Commissioner who was represented by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Dr. Olayiwole Onasanya explained that the FADAMA Project was a tripartite project between the World Bank, Federal Government of Nigeria and Lagos State Government stressing that the State Government in all the entirety of the Project had always paid its counterpart fund to further demonstrate commitment to the Project.
She disclosed that FADAMA remained a part of the State’s resources to develop and implement its 5-year roadmap for sustainable and inclusive growth strategy for Agricultural development with citizens at the core by using multi-layered approaches.
“As a Government, FADAMA remains a part of our resources to develop and implement our 5-year roadmap. For instance, Mr. Governor has graciously approved the mainstreaming of FADAMA contract staff into the Public Service as well as the deployment of FADAMA structure for the implementation of Result Area 2 (Increasing Food Security and safe functioning of the food supply chain} under the World Bank assisted NlGERIA CARES Program for Result.
“We believe that a good turn deserves another and to whom much is given, much is expected. This goes without saying that the government reposes much confidence in the project and much more shall be expected from the drivers of FADAMA Project,” Olusanya averred.
The Acting Commissioner asserted that the State government had invested a lot in the agriculture sector adding that periodic stakeholders’ engagements were critical to successful outcomes to champion interventions at all levels of production, aggregation, handling, preservation, processing, distribution, and support services.
She appreciated the FADAMA Project stakeholders noting that they had done everything possible to help Lagos State towards achieving its food self-sufficiency goal.
“On behalf of the State Government, I thank you all including our development partners; the World Bank and Federal Government of Nigeria, the National FADAMA Coordination Office, Royal Fathers, Community leaders, farmers, collaborating State Ministries, Departments and Agencies among others,” Olusanya said.
