Responding to the cry of poultry and fish farmers, the Lagos State Government has said it will provide support for alternative feed solutions.
The poultry and fish industries have been under tremendous pressure for several years owing to the continuous surge in feed prices, which accounts for 70 percent of farmers’ production costs.
The state’s commissioner of Agriculture, Abisola Olusanya, made this known recently at the Lagos Food Systems Stakeholders Breakfast Meeting, noting that farmers cannot continue to rely on imported feeds for their birds and fish owing to FX volatility.
“We are looking at alternative feeds for our farmers and see how we can support the businesses providing this solution to scale,” Olusanya said.
“As long as we don’t have adequate feed meals and adequate inputs, the cost of feed for farmers will continue to climb and as the dollar rises, it will also increase,” she said.
She stated that a firm is currently cultivating black soldier fly as an alternative feed for farmers, urging farmers to use it as a substitute while addressing the high costs of feed.
Giving an overview of the state’s five-year Agricultural Food Systems Roadmap launched in 2021, said the state government will set up more Feedlot Systems, the establishment of Butchers Academy and the creation of a last mile meat shop.
She noted that under the plan for 2023-2025, the state will go live on eight projects which include, the Central Logistics Hub, Lagos Aquaculture Centre for Excellence (LACE), capacity building for horticultural stakeholders and full operations and capacity building for stakeholders in Lagos Food Production Centres.
Others are the execution of state-wide interventions, the greenhouse establishment, backward integration projects, Green Wall initiatives, the agricultural value chain enterprise activation programme, and the Lagos cares initiative.