CADP contributes 12.75% to Lagos agric GDP

Lagos State Commercial Agriculture Development Project (CADP), which is aimed at improving agriculture production in poultry, aquaculture and rice farming, contributed 12.75 percent to the agricultural gross domestic product (GDP) of Lagos State in 2012

This is according to the state project coordinator Olayinka Kehinde at his presentation of the state restructuring progress report at the first restructuring of CADP, which took place recently at the state agricultural development and cooperatives complex in Oko-Oba, Agege, Lagos.

“The survey conducted revealed that the GDP of the beneficiaries in 2012 stood at N17.86 billion, which accounted for 12.75 percent of the total agricultural sector for the state in Lagos State Bureau of Statistics report,” according to the restructuring progress report.

“An addition of over 2,000 employment opportunities was generated as a result of the project intervention in 2012, when compared with the situation in 2011,” the report adds.

CADP is supporting the Federal Government strategy options of diversifying into non-oil sources of growth and diverting the economy away from over dependence on the oil and gas sector.

According to Adama Toure, task team leader of the World Bank Group, “since CADP was approved in 2009, it has helped many businesses across the value chains. The essence of the project is not to put money into the project but to establish the achievements of the project, there are still millions of Nigerians that are still waiting for the first support ever for their businesses.”

The CADP project is helping participating commercial farmers to have access to new technologies, finances, and output markets, to strengthen agricultural production systems and facilitate access to market for some targeted value chains among small and medium scale commercial farmers in five participating states – Cross Rivers, Enugu, Kaduna, Kano, and Lagos.

Only Lagos and Cross River states have presented their restructuring project reports while the three other states will have their presentations after the country’s general elections.

Also speaking at the event, the national coordinator of CADP, Amin Babandi, says “fundamentally, nothing has changed in the project but certain things have changed. What has changed is the approach of implementation of the CADP project.”

According to the report, fish production increased from 828.38 metric tons (MT) to 6430.66 MT, while smoked fish production increased from 49 MT to 198.89 MT, which is now been imported. Fish feed increased from 0 MT to 392.85 MT between June 2013 to March 2015.

The project has directly supported 3,548 beneficiaries and has indirectly influenced over 77,000 beneficiaries, including those who have benefitted from the rural infrastructure interventions.

JOSEPHINE OKOJIE