The plan for the construction of 13.16 kilometre farm access roads in four cluster areas of Lagos State under the World Bank-assisted Agro-Processing, Productivity Enhancement, Livelihood Improvement Support project is in progress.
The Commissioner for Agriculture in the state, Ms Abisola Olusanya, stated this on Thursday, noting that the farm clusters were in Igbodu and Araga in Epe, Erinkorodo in Ikorodu and Afowo in Badagry.
“APPEALS project is a World Bank-assisted project aimed at enhancing the productivity of small scale farmers in the three identified value chains of poultry, aquaculture and rice, through capacity building, provision of infrastructure and empowerment.
“The project is about rehabilitating and constructing 13.16km farm access roads already identified in four clusters across the state,” the commissioner said.
She hinted that the design of the Bill of Engineering Measurement and Evaluation for the four access roads was at the final stages.
According to Olusanya, the project when completed will reduce losses encountered by egg farmers as a result of bad road.
It will also improve productivity of the concerned farmers, she added.
Olusanya also said the project was used to identify and verify 9,942 farmers and small and medium scale enterprises, while 8,156 had received at least one form of training in relevant areas of agribusiness.
She noted that no fewer than 460 beneficiaries were sponsored for training, workshop and conferences, out of which 425 were farmers.
“A cluster of fish farmers at Badagry have adopted the production of fish crackers and fish cakes, while over 1,000 packs (696kg) of fish fillet and crackers had been produced and sold during the period under review,” the commissioner added.
