The Lagos State Government said it recorded ₦918 million in sales within 40 market days of its premier food hub in the Mushin area.
The state Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Systems, Ms Abisola Olusanya, disclosed this at a news conference on Wednesday.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the briefing was organised to enlighten residents on the initiatives introduced by the state government to ameliorate the current food crisis.
NAN reports that the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, in December 2023 inaugurated the newly constructed middle-level food agro-hub in Idi-Oro, Mushin.
It was introduced to proffer a new way of food distribution in the state and tackle rising food costs as well as address post-harvest losses.
According to the commissioner, the impact of the Mushin food hub is still being felt, as a means of discounting food items by the state government.
“The Mushin food hub is one of many that we should have in the state. The impact of the hub is still being felt up to now.
“We started with only Saturdays as the market days and subsequently in March we added Wednesdays. We have 339 registered vendors working with us on multiple food items.
“In these 40 days of the market’s operation, we have recorded food transactions of almost N1 billion, precisely, N918 million transactions at the Mushin hub with the 339 vendors,” Olusanya said.
She said that over 180,000kg of rice had been sold within the period.
“Over 26,000kg of garri, over 18,318 kilos of poultry meats, and over 55,000 crates of eggs have been sold in this one facility, as well as many other food items but these are just the ones we felt were critically not to mention.
“And considering the fact that the Lagos State Government has not charged any vendor to operate in this vicinity, in the last six months no vendor has been charged.
“When you consider the volume of transactions and scale of what is happening at the hub, it is a form of subsidising food prices for Lagos residents.
“You can only imagine what it costs to keep the hub running but due to our role in ensuring that food prices stabilise and are kept down, we can continue the operations of the hub.
“The Mushin Food Hub is just one of many as you can see that for the first time, we can give data around the number of specific food items coming into the market,” Olusanya said.
She also noted the food hub gives an opportunity to get data on the food pricing system and cushion the costs of prices.
“We can tell you who is going to be selling, we can give you the price at which we are selling.
“This helps in also addressing a lot of the challenges we see across the board when it comes to food quality and food prices.
“When you have a controlled market space, you can easily give back to the people in a way that can be measured.
“We can measure what is coming in and you can see what is going out, and have adequate data and be able to manage.
“It also helps in streamlining a lot of waste, which is part of what we see affecting food pricing. For that reason we are developing more food hubs,” she said.