The Governor of Lagos State, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, on Wednesday commissioned the Mid-Level Agro-Produce Hub in Agege, describing the facility as a major component of his administration’s efforts towards building a more efficient, affordable and resilient food system for the state.
The Mid-Level Agro-Produce Hub in Agege, built on 7,000 square meters of land, is the third in the series after Idi-Oro Mushin and Abijo, Ajah Fresh Food hubs.
Speaking during the commissioning of the Lagos Fresh Food Hub at Pen Cinema, Agege, on Wednesday, Governor Sanwo-Olu said the food hub was built to ensure a direct farm-to-table supply chain to cut out middlemen, curb food spoilage, and lower consumer costs.
He disclosed that the state’s network of mid-level agro-produce hubs constructed in different parts of the state will reduce food supply chain costs, cut post-harvest losses and create thousands of jobs.
He said: “The commissioning of this Mid-Level Agro-Produce Hub in Agege is not simply the unveiling of another piece of infrastructure. It is the physical expression of a larger vision, one that places food security at the heart of our development agenda, and recognises that the prosperity of Lagos is inseparable from the strength and efficiency of its food system.
“When our administration began to rethink the food system of Lagos in 2021, we were guided by a simple but fundamental reality: feeding Lagos is not a production challenge alone. It demands the transformation of the entire food system. Lagos is Nigeria’s largest food market and one of Africa’s fastest-growing urban centres.
“With a population of over 25 million people, our demand for food is enormous and grows every day. Yet over 70 per cent of that food is produced outside our borders. It travels long distances through fragmented supply chains before reaching our markets, exposing our residents to high transportation costs, post-harvest losses, poor storage, supply disruptions, and price volatility.
“We therefore understood that producing more food is not enough. We had to transform the entire chain, from production through aggregation, logistics, and processing, to the markets themselves. That understanding gave birth to the Lagos State Food Systems Transformation Agenda: our comprehensive response to the challenge of feeding Lagos sustainably, affordably, efficiently, and safely.”
Governor Sanwo-Olu noted that the interventions are to create opportunities for farmers to thrive, for investors to earn good returns, and for Lagos to be fed reliably, hinting that the largest food hub at Ejirin in Epe will be completed before the end of his administration.
“At the centre of this Agenda is the Lagos Central Food Systems and Logistics Hub at Ketu-Ereyun, Epe, the flagship food infrastructure project of this Administration. Equipped with modern cold and dry storage, processing and repackaging centres, quality-control laboratories, warehouses, logistics bays, and digital trading platforms, it is designed to become the largest food logistics hub in Sub-Saharan Africa, with the capacity to service more than 1,500 food trucks daily and to handle over 1.5 million metric tonnes of food annually. I am pleased to announce that work on this project is at an advanced stage, and it will be commissioned before the end of this Administration.
“But one central facility, however large or sophisticated, cannot by itself serve the food-distribution needs of a megacity.
“This is why we created a network of Mid-Level Agro-Produce Hubs, beginning with the Fresh Food Hub, Mushin, commissioned in December 2023, and the Fresh Food Hub, Abijo, commissioned by His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, earlier this year” he noted.
