FIC REPORT (LAGOS STATE) — The Federal Government has called on states and other stakeholders to contribute to the validation of a draft Standard Operating Procedure for Nigeria’s Food Systems Transformation Pathways, pressing the case for a coordinated, nationwide approach to tackling the country’s food security challenges, during a three-day review meeting at Protea Hotel, Ikeja, this week.
The gathering, which ran from Tuesday, October 20, through Thursday, October 22, doubled as a biannual review of the FSTP strategy’s implementation and a validation session for the draft SOP covering the South-West geopolitical zone. It drew representatives from Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Ondo and Ekiti states, alongside academics, development partners and other stakeholders with a stake in the programme.
Speaking on behalf of the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning, Dr Deborah Odoh, the National Convener of the Food Systems Transformation Pathway for Nigeria, Dr Clementina Ebere-Okoro, told participants that state and regional input was indispensable to building a framework that actually works on the ground.
The Federal Government had already drafted the SOP, she explained, but getting it right meant bringing in the states and zones where implementation would ultimately happen, so that the final document offers a harmonised approach to coordination, implementation, reporting and accountability. “At the national level, we have put up the draft SOP, but we need the input of everyone — the states and the zones — because that is where the implementation is. We want a situation whereby we have a joint food SOP, so we need to validate it with your inputs,” she said.
Ebere-Okoro did not shy away from cataloguing the scale of the problem, pointing to climate change, insecurity, malnutrition, post-harvest losses and rising food prices as persistent threats to Nigeria’s food systems — challenges she said demand tighter coordination, evidence-based decision-making and the active involvement of government institutions, development partners and other stakeholders.
The biannual review itself, she added, exists to take stock of progress across federal and state levels, flag emerging issues, capture lessons and good practice, and agree on concrete steps to sharpen implementation.
Delivering the keynote address, Lagos State Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, Mr Ope George, argued that transforming the country’s food systems is central to improving food security and nutrition, creating jobs, driving economic growth and lifting household welfare. He was careful to frame the task broadly, noting that food systems transformation reaches well beyond farm output to cover processing, storage, transportation, distribution, market access and sustainable consumption.
George pointed to Lagos’ standing as a major hub of consumption, commerce and distribution as the reason cooperation with other states matters so much to the state, given its deep food supply links with the rest of the country, including the North. “As a major centre of consumption, commerce, and distribution, Lagos State has strong food supply linkages with other parts of Nigeria, including the Northern states,” he said.
He added that cross-country collaboration could help chip away at post-harvest losses, high transportation costs, inadequate storage and market inefficiencies alike. “Our collective goal must be to strengthen food value chains, improve market access for producers, enhance food availability, and build a more resilient and sustainable national food system,” George said, describing the review as a chance to assess progress, surface gaps and map out concrete action, with the validated SOP expected to clarify institutional responsibilities and set a more consistent template for implementation and reporting.
Lagos State Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Systems, Ms Abisola Olusanya, took the conversation in a sharper direction, zeroing in on weaknesses in food preservation, storage and logistics as a drag on food availability and a driver of high prices. Food security, she insisted, is not simply a matter of growing more — it’s what happens to food after it leaves the farm that often does the real damage. “A lot of our problem around inflation is not production. It is actually preservation, storage, and logistics. Those are the key challenges around why food inflation is high,” she said.
She pressed for better organisation of food markets, stronger traceability and tighter quality control to guarantee that what reaches consumers is wholesome, affordable and available. “We must start to organise our markets. We must start to ask questions. We must start to know who is planting this, planting that,” she said.
Olusanya also underscored the role technology, infrastructure and human-capital development have to play in a more efficient food system, pointing to the potential of improved logistics, cold-chain facilities and temperature-controlled transportation to cut both food losses and transport costs, while flagging initiatives that draw young people into agriculture as a way of marrying farming with technology and enterprise development.
In her welcome address, Permanent Secretary of the Lagos State Ministry of Economic Planning and Budget, Mrs Olayinka Ojo, called for sustained collaboration and effective coordination among stakeholders to push the food systems transformation agenda forward, describing the meeting as a chance for participants to review progress, trade experiences, identify implementation gaps and validate a framework for more effective coordination and delivery.
She framed Lagos’ decision to host the meeting as a reflection of the state’s commitment to policy coordination and sustainable development, given how central food systems are to economic growth, job creation and improved livelihoods. “Given Lagos State’s strong economic and food supply linkages with other parts of Nigeria, collaboration across states and geopolitical zones remains essential to building resilient and sustainable food systems,” she said, urging participants to engage actively in the discussions and voicing confidence that the range of experience in the room would produce constructive outcomes for the regional food systems transformation agenda.
By the close of the three days, the review and validation meeting had positioned itself as part of a broader push to strengthen coordination among stakeholders implementing Nigeria’s Food Systems Transformation Pathways and to develop a harmonised operational framework for the South-West zone, with participants expected to review implementation progress, identify outstanding challenges and feed recommendations into a practical SOP built to support stronger collaboration, accountability and improved food systems outcomes.
Sourced By:
Ajibade Oluwatoyin .A
ACI&PRO
23/10/2026
