The CEO, Lukom integrated Service limited, Mr Lukman Komolafe has announced the latest initiatives of the Multiservices Company during a press briefing held Thursday, at the Fishery Headquarters, Dandaru, Ibadan.
He said the initiatives aimed at expanding agribusiness across Nigeria include, Lukom Acres Farmland, Oyo state farmers’ cooperative and Lukom Industrial Parks.
According to him Lukom, the owner of Eja Wá, a public-private partnership project (PPPP) with the Oyo State government, will provide aspiring farmers and agribusiness, access to affordable farmland, essential resources, adequate security and technical expertise.
He added that the organization which has offices in Abuja, Lagos, Ibadan, Ilorin, Dubai, UK and USA, seeks to empower agricultural entrepreneurs to thrive and contribute to food security and rural development.
Mr Komolafe said that “Eja Wá that is our fish, our partnership with the government is to reinvent fishing in Oyo state.
“The second one is LUKOM Acres of Land where we try to solve issues around farms in Nigeria, Security, Technical know-how, Insurance and of course Marketing.
“We are partners with NSCDC Agro Rangers and Amotekun, Nigeria Agricultural Insurance Corporation (NAIC), IITA, CRIN, NRCRI, Psaltry International and others.”
“Then, the other one is Industrial park, we all know that up to this hour, we use to import a lot of finished products, the idea in the park is we have a hall whereby people come together to enjoy the facilities, like Power Supply, finance and other things together.
“The last one is the Cooperatives that cover the whole of Oyo state whereby those who have interest in Agribusiness come under one umbrella, like the saying goes, ‘If you want to go far, go together, if you want to go faster, then you go alone.
“We partnered with the state government to develop fishing in Oyo State and you know it is an empire on its own, fishing is very, very key because every household eat fish, I have not anyone to say he or she has not eat fish before, we have heard someone say he had not eat meat.
“When I discovered that Ninety Percent of Fish we consume in Nigeria are imported that was what brought the name Eja Wá, that how do we close the gap, how do we encourage our local farmers to go into fishery and how do we break down the fish we consume in Nigeria, we have started already and we are moving very fine with it.
“We can bring down the price of food in Nigeria by going into an advance Technology, like we mentioned in our Acres of Land, we do mechanized Farming end to end, because like I said earlier if I said you should use hoe and cutlasses you will think that is all and that is why Farmers are poor.
“When we said Eja Wá, just like you said, in less than One year alone, we have trained more than Five hundred farmers and not only training alone and a good part of it is any of our product you will get it in another place, This Eja Wá can go to Maiduguri, can go to Sokoto and what gave you.
“LUKOM Acres of Land can travel far even beyond Nigeria, we can also have LUKOM Acres of land in Accra Ghana solving the same problem, the same thing goes to Cooperatives and our other products, so we have both short and long term plan for prospective customers, he said.
Lukom integrated service limited, which has trained and equipped over five hundred fish farmers, have also invested in farming, agriculture products export, warehousing, clearing and forwarding service.
The state government through the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources made an assurance of maximum cooperation and partnership with Lukom Integrated Services Ltd to expand the scope of agriculture in Oyo State.
At the press briefing, Lukom integrated service limited, unveiled Olori Olaniyan, Opeyemi Ayanrinde MC Swagger, Jibola Akinyefa Baba Olomi and Abimbola Lameed Sporting Crystal as new Ambassadors.
