Podcast: Fortifying food systems in Lagos

Intro Welcome to African Cities podcast.

Ismail Ibraheem Welcome to Lagos ACRC. This morning we’ll be talking about food production logistics in Lagos. Today is bright and sunny in Lagos. And I’ve got incredible people right here with me that will be talking about the food production as well as logistics in Lagos. And I’m going to ask them to introduce themselves. But starting for me, my name is Ismail Ibraheem. I used to be the Lagos uptake lead, but now the uptake lead of ACRC. Yeah. Taibat would you like to let us know who you are?

Taibat Lawanson Hello everyone. My name is Taibat Lawanson. I’m Professor of Urban Management and Governance at the University of Lagos and the city lead for Lagos. It’s a pleasure to be here today.

Ismail Ibraheem Thank you so much. Folasade.

Folasade Adeboyejo And thank you so much. Good morning everyone. My name is Folasade Adeboyejo. I am a postgraduate researcher at the University of Plymouth, and I’ve been working with ACRC as a researcher for the waste management city of systems.

Ismail Ibraheem Over to Deji.

Deji Akinpelu My name is Deji Akinpelu, founder of Rethinking Cities. I’m part of the ACRC team in Lagos – waste management studies and security. Thank you for having me.

Ismail Ibraheem Okay. Thank you very much, everyone. Food security, I think is a major challenge, not only in Lagos, food security globally. I will start with Taibat. Can you just take us through what is it that you’ve been doing regarding food production and logistics in Lagos, in terms of research. What are the key indicators? What are the opportunities? What is coming out of your research?

Taibat Lawanson Thank you very much. Food is very important and we learnt a lot, looking at the food ecosystem of Lagos. We discovered that close to 80% of the food that is consumed in this city is brought from outside. And that is understandable, given the very high hilltop nature of the city and the high building footprint of the city, and the fact that a lot of the agricultural land uses have been converted to residential over the years. But, that being said, a lot of food is produced on the outskirts of Lagos and around the periurban axis in the [inaudible] and the Badagry axis. We have some food production and even with the Imota rice mill, we have the government thinking on the larger scale and looking even at the export market. And the Lagos State government developed a five-year agricultural roadmap in April 2021, with a target to start earning commercially from agricultural activities. And we’ve seen significant investment into that. But Lagos is still food poor. We find that getting food to the average table still goes through a lot of challenges. A lot of the food that comes into the city comes in from other states of the federation. And unfortunately, because of some of the logistic dilemmas, we find that there’s a high level of food waste. We also see that the access to food is getting increasingly constricted, primarily because of some of the insurgency issues and the violence that’s happening in the North East and the North Central areas. And so a lot of the food coming into Lagos is becoming increasingly expensive. And we have an upsurge in food benevolence activities, primarily by religious organisations and by philanthropic organisations, because many people, including those at the lowest rungs of the ladder and the homeless, are now in desperate need of food for survival. We also found that the quality of food ebbs, primarily because of the long logistics, that process for bringing food into the city and essentially the fact that a lot of the logistics is still largely informal. And so some of the fresh produce that comes into the city comes into the city spoilt because of the pressure of the long travel. And within the city, we found a very nuanced ethnic underplay with regards to market governance. Certain markets are dominated by certain ethnic groups. Certain market sectors are also dominated by certain ethnic groups, and this causes tensions in some of the markets. This causes tensions with regards to during the political season, for example. It also causes tensions when it comes to larger problems. For example, there have been skirmishes in the Mile 12 market between people from the north who are carrying food, who are selling food, and with local area boys who tend to have an ethnic narrative around sometimes the exploitation that happens in the street governance level. And this sometimes impacts on the cost of food or even the availability. And we see that a lot of these issues have spiked since 2020 during the Covid lockdowns, primarily because food is existential. And the overarching economic issues that accompanied that crisis makes it quite difficult for people on the lower rungs of the ladder to balance out. And so we’ve seen this, we’ve seen the challenges, but more importantly, we see that there is significant food waste. And I think there are opportunities there. And, there is a need for us to look a bit closer at what exactly is happening in the food ecosystem and how we can leverage on that, in order to, one, improve, enhance food security for citizens, and, number two, leverage for benefits that may be available. Back to you.

Ismail Ibraheem Thank you so much Taibat for those insights in terms of opportunities, that we have in Lagos. I will come back to you. Let me go to Folasade now. Lagos is a city of more than 25 million, producing an incredible amount of waste. So looking into the Lagos State waste management sector, what are the gaps in the food waste subsector, Folasade?

Folasade Adeboyejo Okay, thank you very much. So looking at Lagos State as a state on its own, with respect to food to waste, we identified that 50% of the waste generated at the household level, it’s actually organic waste, more like food waste, while the other 50%, it’s plastic waste or recyclable waste. We realised that should we compare actions going on in the states with respect to food waste and plastic waste, a lot of actions have been taken with the opportunity to reduce plastic waste and its menace in the city, but this cannot be said for food waste. So this is one of the things we realised and food waste has its own value chain, which could be developed. Unfortunately, this is not as developed as we see for plastic electronic waste, as well as fabric waste. Today in Lagos and in Nigeria as a whole, the electronic waste system has a PRO which is organising the recovery of this waste to be reused and this can be said for plastic as well. And efforts are also going for fabric waste. But for the food waste, nothing is seen. So this is actually a big gap. And the study also indicates that the reason why this might be so could be because, economically, what are the economic potentials of food waste and products generated from this? In reality, in other spheres, food waste has been successfully converted into fertiliser and converted into energy sources. Little actions are being done in the state, but not at the scale of either governance or involvement of businesses in the plastic waste stream. So not being economically viable at the moment, seems to be the major challenge. Also the states had made efforts into recovery of food waste, most especially from markets. And with that past they ventured into a fertiliser producing company called Healthcare Nigeria Limited. Our discussions with stakeholders from the Lagos State Waste Management Agency indicated that yeah, so for this system, for this company, they were collecting food waste primarily from the food market specifically now Mile 12. And for this they collect the waste by themselves without the state involvement, but because of the production and the inability to be able to market the fertiliser produced from the system, they’ve been underproducing and the market value is not really, really existing at the moment. So economically there is a huge gap in that sphere, and there remain challenges. Food waste: the major sources of food waste we identified are households, markets, and this is where it tallies with the food distribution system, the market, as well as businesses. So efforts from the household is a challenge because as at today waste separation is still highly inefficient in the states, so even when individual households decide to separate their waste so you can have your stream of food waste, the points where this is to be recovered by the recovery organisations, which are they are PSP, they still commingle. So there is not a distinct stream where food waste could be collected at the household. And this is also applicable should we move to the market level. Because as a government, what has been provided right there in most of the markets are large [inaudible] receptacles, which are more like [inaudible] bins. And this receptacle is also a co-mingling of different types of waste. So the sourcing of the waste stream that could be used for all that purpose is also difficult. So the gaps we identified can be summarised to be economically not being viable with respect to products from the streams, as well as environmentally, with respect to inability to aggregate the food waste on its own, which the ends to waste separation. Thank you.

Ismail Ibraheem Thank you Folasade. I’ll go back to Taibat. Lagos seems to be edging towards being a more planned city. So it seems from the Lagos State Strategic Development Plans and [inaudible] opportunities for climate action in respect of managing food waste as disclosed by Folasade. From your own insights into the Lagos State Development Plan, what are the opportunities? What are the ways the government’s approach is relevant for this? What are the strategies also put in place, but just as the gaps were identified in food logistics, especially in Lagos?

Taibat Lawanson Currently, what we find is that the food markets are governed through the Market Women and Men’s Association, which is the Iyalojas and the Babalojas association. And it’s quite informal. It’s quite organic, but they also have very strong political influences and impacts. And so it’s a very grounded type of governance regime as to who sells what and where. And so the food distribution logic is still largely informal. What we see is that people who are going into agriculture are also opening up a fresh market, but they are mainly targeting the supermarkets and the hotels, and these are those who are going into agriculture in the Epe, Ikorodu and Badagry axis and packaging for the mainstream or for the formal sector markets, as it were. And what we see is that the Lagos Economic Development Plan has a plan for agriculture, but that plan is more targeted at commercial farming. We know that Lagos State has bought land in other states of the federation to go into agriculture, but there’s not a lot of information in the public domain about the opportunities that are inherent and what exactly is going on. We see that the body language of the state government is to amplify agricultural production. Recently in the last six months, the governor opened up a farmer’s market. We have the Kota rice mill that started with the Lake rice about nine to ten years ago, where there was a collaboration between Lagos State and Kebbi State to produce rice. And then the rice that was produced was then meant to be transported to Lagos, to be processed and bagged, and then some sold within the country and others sold externally. We understand that that rice mill is meant to be the largest in West Africa, but it is still slow in taking off, perhaps because of some of the economic challenges that have occurred globally over the last few years. But there’s not a lot of information in the public domain regarding the larger- scale, higher-level agricultural aspirations and ambitions of the state. When we look at everyday food practices since Covid, we see a high level of backyard farming starting. We see a high level of urban agriculture, going on with many IDPs who are coming into the city with agricultural skills now taking advantage of vacant plots by the roadside, walkways and things like that, to plant food items and things like that. We also have a lot of streetside horticultural participants who sell flowers by the roadside and all of that. All these small pockets, cumulatively, they contribute to making the city cooler, I will say. But it’s not happening in a structured or strong enough fashion that we can measure the impact, whether in the short term or in the longer term. But we know that it’s happening and we know that it’s a good thing that it’s happening, and perhaps we just need some more strengthening of that kind of emerging green practice across the city, at the household and neighbourhood scale. And then, for the longer term, high-level interventions to also target scaling up those kinds of endeavours and ensuring that the ratio of food that is produced in situ and food that is imported becomes a bit less skewed in favour of food that is being brought in from elsewhere. Back to you.

Ismail Ibraheem Thank you Taibat, that is quite insightful. I will go to Deji now. Recently there have been some policy pronouncements by Lagos State government around plastic waste management. Do you see food waste management rise to the level of plastic waste management governance and the sort of what we have recently in Lagos?

Deji Akinpelu Okay. Yeah, I’m trying to make a comparison between the advocacy of policies towards plastic waste management compared to food waste management. It’s pretty much on the low for food waste. We don’t have a very active policy or practice towards the management of food waste. Like Folasade said, I think there’s some food waste facility that have been provided in Mile 12. Attention is not paid to that facility, for instance, because of the general global campaign that has been given to plastic waste, I see less attention has been paid to food waste in cities like Lagos. Whereas, this is where also we need to pay a good amount of attention, considering the amount of this waste that is generated from households and also the potentials that it possesses for making the city more liveable for us. So the environmental impacts that you really get a whole lot of focus on from plastic waste, the same environmental impact we also have from food waste when we get to the landfills, they emit methane, which are potential greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. The health concerns about rotting food and pests, et cetera, all these environmental impacts, health concern, economic implications are some of the things that we need to bring to the fore. So there’s a whole lot of opportunity that we need to begin to explore. Some of these Prof had also spoken to – things like, ideas such as community farming, urban farming in cities within communities, whereby people begin to use their spaces. And jokingly someone said online yesterday that due to the rising food costs, people should get ready to start removing their interlockings in their houses and start planting their own food. Concepts around From Farm to Table within the communities are things that we need to begin to explore. And government agencies has complained about the fact that things are happening, but they are not being measured. But what can be the role of a government agency, for instance, like LASBCA? How can they be coming to the concepts of community farming, community gardening, in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture? Because we have quite a number of open public spaces around communities that can be ceded to communities where they can engage in urban farming activities and be able to have the concept of From Farm to Table. Waste to energy is also part of what we need to consider – the ability for people to turn their food waste into gas, for instance, even within your home, the same food waste that you generated within your home, you can actually convert it to gas right there inside your house, or you can actually take it to a community composting station, where fertilisers can be generated, energy can be generated. So we are just missing out. There’s a whole lot that food waste can offer. I think the city’s just so much concentrated in terms of, “oh, let us make food available, let us make food available to the people”, or we are not thinking about the waste that comes after the food has been made available, because that also has – as much as it is important to provide food for people to eat – it is also very important that you safeguard the food after the waste has been generated to preserve the lives of the people who live in the city. And, by extension, policies, campaigns and public education should be extended to organisations that are into food production, selling food, to be more deliberate about food waste management and utilising its opportunities. Thank you.

Ismail Ibraheem Thank you, Deji. If I can just stay on that topic for a moment, I think perhaps the advocacy around plastic waste management was led by a kind of reform coalition, very strong reform coalition around that issue, as well as some advocacy organisations. What are the opportunities for transformational reform coalitions relating to food production and ecowaste management at household and city scale in Lagos?

Deji Akinpelu Yeah, like you rightly said, reform coalitions have been set up, which I consider pretty much a very global massive move that has been championed. So food waste management is an advocacy gap that probably I see, that we don’t have a lot of, where we have advocacy on sustainable agricultural practices, urban farming, yes, we have all of that on a growing scale. But in terms of advocacy, struggling, for instance, in the plastic industry and the plastic waste campaign, you have the extended producer responsibility, which compels the producers of plastic to be responsible for the end-of-life of their plastic. You don’t have any of such regulation in terms of food waste to those who generate food waste. For instance, if you manage a certain number of chains of eatery, a policy or advocacy should be directed to how the food waste from that eatery is managed. So as long as you have about 400 or 100 outlets or 50 outlets in the city of Lagos, there should be advocacy and coalitions should be able to come together to say, “hey, such organisations that have this amount of outlets”, policies should be designed in such a way that food waste from those areas should be directed to composting stations. They should be responsible enough to direct those food waste to composting stations. And from composting stations, all the outputs that can be generated from food waste can be utilised. That will be biogas, be it energy, be it fertiliser, et cetera, et cetera. So there is that gap and there is that opportunity for reform coalitions, there is also the opportunity to embark on campaigns, to enlighten people on how they can utilise food waste. We can definitely get to the same point where we see people who are being rewarded for their plastic, the same way, I believe we can get to the point where we can reward people for their food waste, because it’s going to be eventually, going to be converted. So there’s a need for a whole lot of educate, public enlightenment and also encouraging start-ups in the area of food waste management. So I don’t know of any start-up in the food waste management space. But start-ups in the food waste management space need to be incubated and accelerated, whereby these start-ups go from household to household, they can pick up people’s food waste and convert it to every necessary material that it could be converted to. So, in terms of reform coalitions, there are lots and lots and lots of opportunities that we need to take advantage of. And interestingly, this particular waste is the largest among what is generated from household to household. So we need to pay a lot of attention to this. What can come out of it is very much needed by the people, be it biogas, be it fertiliser. Like Folasade said, it’s about also creating the market. The market for biogas, I feel so strongly that it is there, considering the cost of gas presently that we are experiencing. So these recyclables or recycling food waste into biogas can pretty much help people to get gas on a cheaper level. So yeah, the opportunities for reform coalition to pursue is there and I think we from the civil society, we need to do pretty much more in the area of food waste management. Thank you.

Ismail Ibraheem Thank you Deji. Reform coalitions are actually central to the theory of change of ACRC. They are vehicles for transformation of urban cities, but as an element of politics in the formation of reform coalition. And I’m glad that some of this was addressed in the research by Taibat. Could you Taibat, could you please disclose, for instance, outputs of food distribution in your research, as it relates to politics, market politics, food politics and politics of waste management?

Taibat Lawanson Yeah. So we find that the food distribution politics is quite nuanced, and there’s a very strong ethnic issue there. We also find that with regards to some produce, there’s also a gender bias. For example, in the cattle market now, we see that those who are in the cattle markets are predominantly men, and they are also predominantly from the north, while those who serve as butchers are predominantly men or predominantly men from the southwest. And while those who sell beef products are men, while those who sell the offals and other parts of the cow are women. And we find that there are very clear distinctions around the lines and the hierarchies of who gets in and who goes out. We also see that within the ecosystem, there are very strong lines, and it’s very rare for you to find somebody moving from being a butcher to being a cow seller or being somebody who is selling offals to somebody who is selling direct beef and all of that. There are very clear cultural lines involved. There are very clear gender-specific rules involved. But we also see clashes, for example, when there was an issue in northern Nigeria, when there was an ethnic upset in northern Nigeria, the foods that was coming to Lagos was stopped at the Jebba border, and for days they could not move across that bridge. And what that meant was that in subsequent weeks, Lagos had to struggle with meeting the needs of their population. And what that triggered at the time was a series of agricultural training. A lot of the politically exposed people, the politicians, elected officials, started this wave of agricultural training for their people and all of that. But it’s short-lived because shortly after that crisis was resolved, we are back to the status quo. And so, while there is this threat that if there’s a crisis, Lagos may be cut off from the food supply, not much is being done, in a very obvious, strong, intentional way to ensure that the capacity of the state to produce more of the food that she needs is being enhanced. That’s one. The second one is also to scale up the kinds of opportunities that are within this agricultural market. It’s somewhat difficult. And then, on a lighter note, Nigerians are very meat-eating, meat-loving people. And so we definitely will not be doing well on the scale of climate-conscious consumption, especially because we like our meat and we’ve seen that cows contribute quite significantly to greenhouse gas emissions. But, I don’t know how we’re going to do that, how the Nigerian palette is going to be adjusted to be more climate-friendly, because suya is very tasty, and even though it comes from the north, it has been adopted as perhaps a national meal, if you will. So while we really, really like our food, and the food environment has become quite strong commercially, and all of that, the fundamental polarisation along ethnic lines, along gender lines and the potential threat to the city when there are issues outside the city, remains. I think in addition to understanding how to deal with waste, how to engage on addressing the climate crisis as it relates to food, we also need to really think critically about making Lagos more food-independent, if you will. Back to you.

Deji Akinpelu Okay, Professor, can I just speak to something that she spoke to, which seems to be really like an emerging topic, which is food production that we consider a threat to climate change, to our climate, to our environment. I think it’s also one reoccurring topic now. And, it’s good also for us to talk about, to begin to look at how we want to resolve it. So like she was saying suya and then also the issue of kpomo, the state government had even issued a statement that all people should stop eating kpomo because of its production process and effects on the environment. And I think that’s also what we witnessed some years also in terms of fish smoking. But I think this is where research also needs to come in, on how this food can be prepared and produced in such a way that is climate friendly, that people can still enjoy the foods that they want to eat, or is it that we just have to change our palates, like Prof said, or we also invest some time to begin to look at how those food production can be done in a more environmentally safe way. So I just want to put that in. Thank you.

Ismail Ibraheem Thank you Deji. Perhaps, maybe, because I could see maybe some of our audience asking what is suya, what is kpomo, can you just tell us what the two mean? Those are local delicacies.

Deji Akinpelu Ah [laughs] the English names. So, Prof, I didn’t Prof understand more English like this.

Folasade Adeboyejo Okay. For suya, let me help with that. Suya it’s actually beef jerky.

Deji Akinpelu Is suya beef jerky? It’s Kilishi that is beef jerky.

Folasade Adeboyejo Yeah. That’s true. So, suya, what do you call that? Grilled meats?

Taibat Lawanson Grilled barbecued beef skewers. And it’s really nice. Suya is suya, anyway, just like how chicken tikka is chicken tikka, suya is suya. But it’s really nice grilled beef and some done with chicken as well, in spices of peanuts and pepper and all of that. It’s quite savoury. And even though it comes from Nigeria’s north, I think it’s now one of our national dishes in addition to jollof rice, I must say. And then kpomo is the cow skin. It’s highly required in the leather industry, but we have also found a way of it coming into the diet, and it’s been made into stews and sauces and people enjoy it in addition to other parts of the cow.

Ismail Ibraheem Thank you Prof for the explanation. I know people will be wondering, how can you eat cow skin, something that is used for leather to make shoes and so on. I think that’s going to be a discussion for another day. Folasade, what are the elements of politics in the management of waste in Lagos, foodwise?

Folasade Adeboyejo Okay. Thank you very much. So the elements of politics that we identified during the course of the research, are to do with various levels of governance. So, like we’ve been saying, there is no concrete action for food waste, either at the legislative level – so the most updated rule of law governing most waste in Lagos State is Lagos State Environmental Management and Protection Law of 2017. In that document, nothing was stated specifically for food waste, but in general, waste was categorised under three categories, in the waste operations category. And those were the tenement waste. And if you go to the tenement waste, which is what was listed, they had the commercial, you have household tenement waste, basically meant all waste emanating from a building, a place that has been rented. So this is how you can actually find food waste to be slotted into that law. So waste generated from households, right, so that’s from the, with respective rule of law, so food waste could either be categorised under commercial, and we use the word commercial because industrial goes a bit towards engineering, so more of commercial and household waste. So with respect to rule of law, that’s under the category for tenements. Then another category where food waste comes in is public waste. And this is what we’ve been talking about with respect to market waste. So that’s with respect to the law. So with respect to other aspects, with respect to governance, and it is how with respect to those who are the stakeholders, those playing in this space. And if we talk about these, as it is today and as I said earlier, the PSP are those which are actually being given the right under the franchise model to have access to waste from household and industry. So to explain that a little bit, so, when it comes to waste management in Lagos, because the core focus has been a lot on plastics and electronics and their likes. So when it comes to waste management in Lagos, the stakeholders, which the government work with directly is PSP, and in this case they work there as a franchise model or a service model. So the franchise models are those that pay franchise to the government for them to be able to access states, so households in order to retrieve their waste from there, while, with respect to service, this has to do with the category of people who manage those within the markets as well as those who clean the highways. And these are another category of people. So in working with stakeholders, the political settlement element, they prefer to work more with PSP. So waste management had been handed to PSP and they work in collaboration under these two categories. Nevertheles, we need to mention that conscious effort is being made thanks to the actions of all the supporting organisations, such as HBS, who are pushing for wider interaction between politics and those other stakeholders which are being seen to be quite informal, but they are much more organised in the way they work. And in this case, we are talking of the informal waste workers and they’ve been able to come together, form a coalition. They are called ASWAL and this is the Association of Scrap and Wastepickers of Lagos. Compared to the past ten years, they are much more recognised. The government now liaise with them to see how they could be integrated into the system and how they could actually make them work, either as a franchise, or the service, but that’s still a discussion which is going on another end. So but at least with respect to the elements of the waste management, so I’m talking with waste management because we say that the most important thing that the food waste is now, is not really developed compared to other sector. So ASWAL, right now the government has been in conversation with them, they’ve been trying to support them. They’ve been able to look for the different players. And just to say there is welcome talk of the ASWAL, which is the Association of Scrap and Wastepickers of Nigeria, these informal waste workers and trying to organise them, they came together as ASWAL and a lot of the players are people from different parts of the country which are picking active roles in the state. And in all honesty, when it comes to waste recovery in Lagos, ASWAL are active participants, even much more active compared to other start-ups which have access to fundings, supports from collaboration – let me use the word collaboration – that collaborate much more easily with the state government compared to the informal waste workers. Nevertheless, the informal waste workers have been much more active before the governance of waste management got where it is right now in the state, either in the past 20 to 30 years ago or right now. Nevertheless, their recognition is just growing and it has improved, in all honesty, compared to the way it was. Because at a point in time, this group of people were once banned from the landfills and it was a complete shut-off, more like their source of livelihood has been cut off completely, and they’ve been able to regroup and improve the way they work to this point. And if you should look at other political elements, so the rule of law, so when it comes to waste management in Lagos State, so it actually comes to a hierarchy and from inception and the involvement of the state – especially when the state was the capital of Nigeria – the initial legal framework gives the management of wastes in Lagos State to local government. But at that point, waste management in Lagos was more state-operated. And if you should look at the numbers of population in the state, there were quite a lot of challenges coming up with their inability to manage it and efforts to improve that are taking away waste management from local governments and had now become a state-managed system. Even at the state level, the inefficiencies were so huge until they got to the point of bringing in the PSP. And in bringing in PSP, this was with a pilot study that was conducted in 1997, 1995 – between 1995 1997 for a period of ten years. And it was actually at the point that there was quite a lot of improvement. At that point, Lagos State was seen to be the debtor state in Nigeria, and with PSP coming up, working in collaboration with the government, they’ve been able to transition the management from state-owned to more like a co-management system, whereby the PSP are working in collaboration with the state’s managers, which is LAWMA, which is Lagos State’s Waste Management Agency. So in working together now, they’ve been able to an extent work effectively for removal of household waste as well as removal of industrial waste. So, as at today, waste management politically is more at the central level, at the state level, but in collaboration with active stakeholders, such as the PSP and other start-ups, working in the space. Thank you.

Ismail Ibraheem Thank you so much Folasade. That means the waste management in Lagos is so intertwined with politics in Lagos State. That’s interesting. We are running short of time, so I’m going to just ask for our last words and if I can start from Taibat, last words from you regarding food distribution logistics in Lagos State.

Taibat Lawanson Yeah, thank you very much. It’s been a really nice conversation and I think, there are just so many opportunities. There are opportunities for food production, there are opportunities for enhancing food security, and there are opportunities for conservation and preservation through food waste governance. And really, taking a closer look at ensuring that less food is wasted and that the food waste is also repurposed and brought back into the system to serve value. So I see it as a win win situation, if we’re able to put a bit of more emphasis on it. And now that Lagos is looking to continue in the second phase of ACRC, there’s a possibility that we can explore these opportunities better. Thank you.

Ismail Ibraheem Thank you so much Taibat, Deji, last words.

Deji Akinpelu Okay. Yeah, it’s been an interesting conversation, the whole mix of political settlement and its influence. Just in addition to what Prof said, we need to pretty much begin to look at these political actors and their influence over the potentials that food waste recycling can generate, because in the waste sector in the city of Lagos, we can clearly see that there is a strong element of politics, during the last election in formal ways, because they are used to go for political rallies, etcetera, et cetera. So that political influence is also a factor we need to consider, as we move forward, as we study the opportunities that abound in food waste. And then also how the informal sector can utilise these new opportunities, how advocacy can be directed towards them to get the necessary support to utilise the opportunities that food waste provides within the system. I think it’s an ongoing discussion, and I think the ACRC can take advantage of the opportunities here. Thank you for having me.

Ismail Ibraheem So, Folasade.

Folasade Adeboyejo Okay. Thank you very much. Yeah. It has been so interesting discussing all this. And, for my last word, something I realised from the waste management system is the plastic waste system, with respect to governance development, got to where it is today because of backings from large corporate organisations. Yes, we can’t rule out international organisations, but also in Nigeria, there were backings at the establishment of the Producer Responsibility Organisation which is PRO. We need this also in the food waste subsector, so we need large corporate organisations which are using large quantities of organic products, using large quantities of agricultural products in their production of food to be able to support the development of organic food waste value chain. And when we’re talking about food waste, we should also not forget that other organic sources, such as wood waste from the wood sector, which is not utilised at the point, could be moved in, as well as other sectors. So looking at not just food waste, but all organic waste stream and different players in the sector needs to be supported because, yes, now that’s also a gap which does not exist. The big players – they need big players to support the different coalitions or start-up businesses which are interested in the sector. Thank you.

Ismail Ibraheem Thank you so much, Folasade. It has been quite interesting listening to the three experts in the room talk about food distribution and production, the politics underpinning it, how politics permits the operations of food distribution and logistics in Lagos, and the fact that political settlement is central to what is happening in that particular ecosystem. And we have also listened to the role of reform coalition in pushing the frontiers of transformation in that particular sector. Thank you so much Folasade, thank you Taibat, thank you to Deji. From all of us in Lagos ACRC, thank you so much. And, until we come your way again, thank you for listening.

Taibat Lawanson Thank you very much.

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