Create more access roads in rural areas, Farmer urges Lagos Govt

An Integrated farmer, Mrs Sola Ogunleye, has appealed to the Lagos State Government to create more access roads in rural area, especially in various farm settlements across the state.

Ogunleye told the Newsmen on Thursday in Lagos that lack of access roads posed a great challenge to the transportation of agricultural products to the markets.

She listed the provision of financial support for new and existing farmers as another area of concentration for the state government in 2021.

According to her, the first challenge facing farmers is road; transporting our produce from the farm to the market is very difficult.

“My farm is located in Ikorodu, a very inner part of the area. The road from Ijede area to Elepe is bad, although, they are working on Elepe now, from there to my village is very bad.

“The main issue of bad road have contributed to the cost of transporting farm produce from my farm to the markets.

“The high cost of food items could also be attributed to the high cost of transporting agricultural products.

“There are some materials that we want to use on the farm sometimes, but taking them to the farm is very expensive,” Ogunleye said.

She also urged the state government to provide more financial supports for farmers to expand their farms, and as well increase food production.

The farmer said that many people were relocating to the inter-land, and remote area of Lagos.

“There is need for government to engage such people and encourage them to embrace farming as a source of livelihood,” she said.

Ogunleye added that financial support for farmers in form grants, loans and seedlings would go a long way to increase food production.

“We need more financial support from the government, though, government has been doing it for us, we want more to be able to increase our outputs.

“We have new farmers coming up everyday, many people are relocating to the remote areas of Lagos and the only thing government can do is to encourage them to go into farming.

“The only way government can encourage them is to provide support, either through grants, interest free loan, farming tools and seedlings.

“We need to take advantage of the migration from cities to towns to get more people into the agricultural space,” she said.

Ogunleye described 2020 as a very difficult year for many farmers, urging the government to prevent a similar situation from recurring.

She expressed optimism that 2021 would be better, if the Federal and State Governments would give priority to agriculture.

“I am an integrated farmer; a processor, poultry farmer, vegetable farmer, palm wine farmer and lot more. I deal with all the varieties of agriculture.

“There are lots of challenges in the areas of sales and marketing in 2020, but we hope it will improve in 2021.

“I had challenges with my livestock; I have very little livestock in my farm, unlike in the past. I was unable to rear many chickens because of the high cost of poultry feed.

“Year 2020 was a very difficult year, but we thank God for all the supports from the state government in order to sustain the food supply chain and we hope 2021 will be better.

“We hope that government will find a lasting solution to the high cost of poultry feeds,’’ Ogunleye said.