The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security in collaboration with the Lagos State Agriculture Development Authority on Friday trained youths and women on tomatoes production.
The Lagos State Coordinator of Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, Mrs. Omolara Abimbola-Oguntuyi, during the programme held at Oko-Oba area of Agege, stressed the training was conceived in order to encourage massive tomato production in the southern parts of the country, which Lagos belongs to.
”’ Of late, prices of tomatoes in the market of recent have gone up and unreachable, hence, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture felt that it was high tie we brought in farmers to be involved in the cultivation and production of tomatoes.
”There is no doubt that Lagos is an urban environment but there is more that we can do to make sure that whatever is coming in (from other parts of the country will supplement whatever we can do in the State, so that prices of tomato can come down.
”Women are mostly hit by the skyrocketing prices of tomato because they are the ones that cook in the house, so the more women we can bring into the production of tomato the better so that prices can come down.”
Remarking, the Agriculture Officer from the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, Mr. Sola Lawal, disclosed that the training was introduced to empower farmers with the capacity to cope with the effect of climate change confronting tomato farmers in the southern region of the country.
” The main idea behind this training is to increase the capacity of farmers in the agriculture value chain against the backdrop of climate change and tomato is one of the value chains.
”This training is taking place in all states of the southern zone of Nigeria and what we intend to achieve with the training is to empower our farmers with information and tools that would enable them to perform and adapt better in the face of climate change that is impacting food production negatively.
The Programme Manager of LSADA, Mrs. Tawakalit Kosoko, represented by the agency’s Director of Technical Services, Dr. Oladipo Opadokun said the agency would monitor the impact of the training through agriculture extension officers in different parts of the State.
”We have agriculture extension officers in the various zones of the State and the impact of this training would be known through proper monitoring of the participants for necessary follow up on their improvement.”
