Lagos State is expanding its food infrastructure with a network of food hubs and a N500 billion offtake guarantee scheme as it seeks to reduce dependence on food supplies from other parts of Nigeria, stabilise prices and create new opportunities across the agricultural value chain.\n<\/p>\n
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With more than 25 million people to feed and over 70 per cent of its food supplies coming from outside the state, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu said Lagos was developing a long-term strategy to transform the state from a largely consumption-driven market into an integrated food production, processing, logistics and distribution hub.\n<\/p>\n
Speaking at the commissioning of the Lagos Fresh Food Hub in Agege, Sanwo-Olu said the state was building a food economy capable of handling more than 1.5 million metric tonnes of food annually, supporting 1,500 food trucks daily and unlocking a N500 billion market guarantee for farmers under the Produce for Lagos Programme.\n<\/p>\n
He said Lagos could no longer rely on fragmented food supply chains to feed its growing population, as dependence on food transported from other states increases exposure to transportation costs, post-harvest losses, inadequate storage and price volatility.<\/p>\n
According to the governor, the emerging network of food hubs will connect farmers, aggregators, traders, processors and consumers within a more coordinated market structure.\n<\/p>\n
Sanwo-Olu said the food infrastructure expansion was being backed by the N500 billion Offtake Guarantee Fund under the Produce for Lagos Programme.\n<\/p>\n
The scheme is designed to address two major challenges facing farmers: access to finance and reliable markets.\n<\/p>\n
By providing a guaranteed market for agricultural produce, the initiative could give farmers greater confidence to increase production while creating opportunities for businesses involved in aggregation, processing, storage, transportation and distribution.\n<\/p>\n
The governor said the Mushin food hub, commissioned in December 2023, had recorded more than N4 billion in transactions across 228 market days, created over 7,000 direct and indirect jobs and attracted more than 850 registered vendors.<\/p>\n
Similar facilities are being developed in Opebi, Agege, Ikorodu and Bombata, with plans to eventually extend the network across all Local Government Areas and Local Council Development Areas in Lagos.\n<\/p>\n
At the centre of the strategy is the Lagos Central Food Systems and Logistics Hub at Ketu-Ereyun, Epe.\n<\/p>\n
The facility is designed to handle more than 1.5 million metric tonnes of food annually and service over 1,500 food trucks every day.\n<\/p>\n
It will include cold and dry storage facilities, processing and repackaging areas, quality-control laboratories, warehouses, logistics bays and digital trading platforms.\n<\/p>\n
Sanwo-Olu said construction was at an advanced stage and the facility would be completed and commissioned before the end of his administration.<\/p>\n
The governor said the broader food transformation programme could eventually enable Lagos to move beyond meeting its own food needs and become an exporter of agricultural commodities.\n<\/p>\n
The Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Systems, Abisola Olusanya, said the newly commissioned Lagos Fresh Food Hub in Agege is projected to facilitate more than N5 billion worth of food transactions annually.\n<\/p>\n
The facility was designed as a middle-level food hub connected to the state\u2019s broader Central Food Security Systems and Logistics Hub.\n<\/p>\n
Olusanya explained that the state was developing a hub-and-spoke distribution model, with the central logistics hub serving as the main facility while smaller hubs are positioned closer to consumers and major trading centres.\n<\/p>\n
The Agege hub, alongside the existing Mushin facility and other hubs under development, will operate as interconnected nodes within the network.<\/p>\n
The model is also designed to address challenges associated with traditional food markets, including poor handling and storage, post-harvest losses, traffic congestion, poor sanitation and difficult trading conditions.\n<\/p>\n
The Agege facility, developed in partnership with Origin Tech Group, occupies approximately 7,000 square metres, including a 4,000-square-metre trading floor capable of accommodating between 350 and 400 vendors.\n<\/p>\n
It also has about 1,200 square metres of dry storage with a capacity of approximately 800 metric tonnes and cold storage capacity of about 300 metric tonnes.\n<\/p>\n
Other facilities include a dedicated seafood section, parking for between 80 and 90 vehicles and 10 electric vehicle charging points.\n<\/p>\n
The scale of the facility could create opportunities for MSMEs operating across food trading, aggregation, processing, logistics, cold-chain services, packaging, storage, transportation and technology.<\/p>\n
Olusanya said the hub was expected to facilitate more than N5 billion in food transactions annually based on its trading capacity and the volume of food it can handle.\n<\/p>\n
The state has also developed a 351-page operating framework to guide the management and day-to-day activities of the facility.\n<\/p>\n
Under the framework, produce will enter the hub through farmers, aggregators, processors, suppliers and bulk dealers before reaching commissioned agents, retailers and institutional buyers.\n<\/p>\n
Cold and dry storage facilities will allow businesses to preserve produce when immediate sales are not required, while quality control, inventory management, sanitation and waste management systems will support more organised operations.\n<\/p>\n
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The hub network is also expected to provide the Lagos State Government with better data on food flows across the state.\n<\/p>\n
This could help policymakers and businesses better understand demand, supply patterns, storage requirements and distribution gaps.\n<\/p>\n
For farmers and agribusinesses, a more organised system could improve access to buyers and reduce some of the losses associated with moving perishable products through fragmented supply chains.\n<\/p>\n
The Agege Local Government Chairman, Abdul-Ganiyu Obasa, said the facility would strengthen the area\u2019s position within Lagos\u2019 growing food economy while creating opportunities for traders, processors, transport operators, farmers and other businesses.\n<\/p>\n
He described the project as strategic infrastructure capable of improving food distribution and attracting more private-sector investment to the area.<\/p>\n
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As Lagos expands its food hub network and implements the N500 billion offtake guarantee scheme, the initiative could reshape the state\u2019s food economy by connecting production, finance, storage, processing, logistics and retail within a more coordinated system.\n<\/p>\n
For MSMEs, the development presents opportunities beyond farming, with demand likely to grow for services that help move, store, process, finance and market food efficiently across Lagos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lagos State is expanding its food infrastructure with a network of food hubs and a N500 billion offtake…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1146230,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3094],"tags":[311708,51,13659,135928,82836,8374,80464,3134,268720,7974,62559,311709,16,15,76259,10129,3443],"class_list":["post-1146229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entrepreneurship","tag-bauchi","tag-business","tag-business-development","tag-business-support","tag-digital-entrepreneurship","tag-digital-marketing","tag-digital-skills","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-entrepreneurship-training","tag-financial-literacy","tag-kano","tag-northern-nigeria","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-women-and-girls","tag-women-empowerment","tag-women-in-business"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117088345586607793","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1146229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1146229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1146229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1146230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1146229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1146229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1146229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}