The Lagos State Commissioner for Agriculture, Ms. Abisola Olusanya, has said that no fewer than 3,000 agripreneurs in artisanal fisheries, poultry and piggery value chains would be empowered at the 2021 Agricultural Value Chains Enterprise Activation Programme.

“This year’s agricultural value chains enterprise activation programme will be coming up on this July, 2021. We will be giving out farm implements and other inputs to 3,000 agripreneurs across three value chains of poultry, piggery and fisheries”, Olusanya said in a recent statement.

She explained that 70 per cent of the beneficiaries would be women and youth who had been specifically targeted under the three value chains because statistics had shown that they were the most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and zoonotic diseases, in addition to the fact that they represented the value chains in which the state had comparative and competitive advantage.

In giving a breakdown of the beneficiaries, the commissioner said: “These will include 300 Lagos Agripreneurship Programme (LAP) and Agricultural Youth Empowerment Scheme (Agric-YES) participants, 400 pig farmers and 680 fishermen. “Others are 190 fish cage culture beneficiaries, 360 egg marketers, 500 fish processors, 200 rice farmers as well as 370 crop farmers.

“We will be empowering farmers with tractors, ploughs, disc harrows, fishing boats, outboard motor engines, nets, fish-finders, thresher battery cages, point of lays and poultry feeds.” Timeline NG