Lagos State Government says it has commenced a three-week baseline survey for agriculture and participatory appraisal of farm estates and settlements in the state.

The State Commissioner for Agriculture, Prince Gbolahan Lawal, who disclosed this said the main objective of the survey, is to obtain comprehensive information on the production of value chains, current production capacity, assessment and valuation of inputs and agricultural development programmes through systematic monitoring and evaluation.

Lawal said the survey was necessary in order to assess the potential impact of the five-year road map for agriculture in the state, stressing that data would be collected from all the 20 Local Government Areas and 37 Local Council Development Areas in the state.

He noted that the specific objectives of the survey are the need to provide basic socio-economic indicators or gazette type of information on the Ministry of Agriculture programmes and initiatives, provide a framework for other surveys and information for planning, measure changes in simple indicators of Project’s impacts at regular intervals and to collect information on the number of active farmers in the state.

The Commissioner explained that the main objective of the participatory appraisal, on the other hand, is to obtain comprehensive information on the status quo of all farm estates and settlements, their numbers, location, population of farmers within each estates/settlement, infrastructure developments, current production capacity, assessment and valuation of inputs through systematic monitoring and evaluation.