FG To Boost Farming Through Irrigation System For Food Security

…Seeks to engages community Leaders On Farmers/Herders Crisis

By Hosea Yusuf Abuja

In line with renewed hope agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to address food sufficient in the country, the minister of agriculture and food security Senator Abubakar Kyari has called on the all Nigerians to remain focus as the ministry is working very hard to address the challenges of food scarcities farmers harder clashes to leverages poverty in the country.

The Minister gave the charge in Abuja yesterday during the ministerial press briefing with the journalists on the way forward for the agricultural sector towards delivering on the renewed hope agenda of president Ahmed Bola Ahmed Tinubu to strategy plans for sufficient food production in the country.

He said, it gives me a great sense of duty to brief Nigerians today and our friends and partners in the Agriculture and Food Security sector on our way forward towards delivering on the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR and our strategies of operations over the next four years.

My colleague the honourable minister of State and I are totally committed to providing the desired leadership direction to steer the agriculture and food security sector towards the attainment of the key priorities of the President’s 8-point Agenda which was unveiled on August 28, 2023 during the maiden Federal Executive Council meeting.

Since our assumption of office on 21st August 2023, we have received briefings from all the Departments and Agencies with a view to understanding where we are, what is on-going that is delivering the desired results and outcomes, and what needs to give way. Accordingly, we have examined what needs to change and what we need to do to re-align existing initiatives and programs that are on course to be in line with the four priorities of the renewed hope agenda that are core to the mandates of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security.

He said that all the programs and initiatives of the Ministry shall be completely aligned to attaining these four Presidential Priorities. In doing so, we are currently reviewing existing projects to ensure due diligence in achieving this alignment with minimal distortions while keeping confidence-building measures in place to get the total buy-in of our stakeholders as partners in progress.

The process of carrying out a robust Stakeholder analysis that will produce a working stakeholder map showing who does what, where and how and what are the mutually beneficial areas for the small holder farmers, large scale farmers, processors, marketers and the organized Private Sector. This in itself will bring about resource-use efficiency while reducing duplication and wastages.

“It is a known mantra that organizations are charged to think outside the box. We at the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security have decided to think without the box if we are to achieve our mandates. This becomes more profound given the current state of our national food security for which President Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR declared a national state of emergency on Thursday 13th July 2023. Indeed, the current state of food security is threatened by issues of availability and affordability.”

He further reinstated that malnutrition and the rates of food inflation requires that we work all year round to ensure increased food production while putting in place measures to make food available, accessible, affordable, and of the right nutrition on a sustainable basics the underlying challenges noted above call for innovative and trending solutions which are better understood when we recount the challenges of insecurity, youth’s unemployment, and our increasing population and attendant competition for the same prime agriculture land for mass housing schemes and other competing developmental projects.

Nigeria is expected to reach 400 million by 2050; which is just around the corner that is not all. Indeed, climate change poses an even greater challenge as was noted by the President in his speech to the 78th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) thus “Northern Nigeria is hounded by desert encroachment on once arable land. Our south is pounded by the rising tide of coastal flooding and erosion. In the middle, the rainy season brings floods that kill and displace multitudes”.

All these challenges require not just a change in tactics and approach but injection of new knowledge, innovations, skills, techniques, technology and value orientation, climate change is now a very high impact and high- likelihood event and we need to mitigate and plan for it if we are to guarantee sustainable food and nutrition security for Nigerians.

The president has demonstrated total political will to transform the Agriculture and Food security of our dear country by not only changing the name to Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security but also making Food Security the number one presidential priority of his agenda. want to assure all our stakeholders that the issue of ‘political will’ as an impediment to policy actions is now a forgone issue.

” Our focal areas that hinges on integration, sustainability, and resilience to our challenges. These span the immediate, short, medium, and long term as presented below: The Immediate priority actions – ongoing to the end of 2023: The most pressing actions we are currently handling is preparation for the next dry-season farming beginning from November 2023 some preparatory activities have been carried out and many others are at the advanced stage.”

The presidential priorities are our core agenda and are well aligned with the mandates and operations of our Ministry: Food Security Economic Growth and Job Creation Poverty Eradication Inclusivity (Youths and Women) and enabling environment for individuals, groups, and the private sector to participate in governance and economic activities.

Noted that the execution of the programs and initiatives of the Ministry may have a tangential relationship to the remaining four priorities of the 8-point agenda of Mr. President and we are not unmindful of this indeed, we consider a multifaceted and multi-pronged approach to the attainment of our core objectives as a critical success factor.

The ministries will continue to engaged with other Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) and State Governments towards addressing all issues impacting the attainment of our national food security objectives.
The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security under our watch shall be guided by some lessons learned in the implementation of the National Agricultural Technology and Innovation Policy (NATIP) which was launched for 2022 -2027 many of the initiatives and programs being implemented by the Ministry from 2022 to date were the focus of our engagements with the Ministry staff. We also benefited from briefings on on-going projects by our Development Partners.

” Certification of available planting materials for some food security crops in readiness for dry-season farming;
Aggressive promotion and preparations for dry season farming which commences from November this year;
Implementation of the dry season Wheat production starting in November 2023 as part of the National Agricultural Growth Scheme and Agro Pocket (NAGS-AP) projects funded by the African Development Bank. Under this scheme.”

Production of wheat over a 70, 000 hectares across the wheat production zone of the country with an expected yield of 875,000 metric tonnes for our food reserve; blending of appropriate fertilizers to support this year’s dry season farming while making provisions for next year farming season well in advance providing Train-the-Trainer for extension agents involved in dry season farming in collaboration with wheat producing States and other partners such as flour mills.

The National Agriculture and Food Security Summit in November 2023 will bring all Stakeholders together for development of National Action Plan for Food Security with an implementation and sustainability strategy;
Hold the National Council for Agriculture and Food Security (NCAFS) Meeting in Cross River State in November 2023 to develop a strategic operational plan for Federal-State-Local Government joint implementation plans and strategies;
Review the mechanisms and processes for delivering fertilizers and agro pesticides input to farmers under a transparent and accountable regime. This will be part of the main agenda at both the Summit and the NCAFS meetings in November this year;
Distribute pasture seeds and cuttings for dry season pasture and fodder development for livestock productivity beginning November 2023.

Agriculture and food security stakeholders’ analysis and mapping;
Make significant investment in animals feed-crop, fodder and pasture production as an antidote to the farmers and herders clashes by focusing the development of paddocks, foliage and fodder estates equipped with necessary facilities for all year round production;
Strengthen agriculture and food security institutions and repositioning them for the tasks ahead.

Reform the National Agricultural Research System to serve as the engine of growth for innovative solutions to strategic value chains, increase productivity -yields of our food security and export crops, livestock, and fisheries establish 2 new national gene bank facilities, each for crop and animal respectively to conserve our fast-eroding genetic resources for food security.
Fast-track the take-off and operations of the National Agricultural Development Fund develop a National Framework for proper coordination and alignment of all ongoing and future development partners’ projects to our national priorities.

Develop innovative communication, monitoring, evaluation, learning and accountability platforms that guarantees continuous interface among all the critical stakeholders to ensure 24/7 engagements and field reporting. ICT tools will be deployed to support these platforms for the facilitation of e-extension services at scale.
Develop a stakeholder Engagement and Communication Strategy for Agriculture and Food Security;
Develop a new strategy for strengthening agricultural infrastructure and provision of support to our new farm types (which shall be unveiled before the end of the year);

Prepare a Joint Action Plan with the Federal Ministry of Water Resources to unlock the huge irrigation potentials of the River Basins Development Authorities and other flood plains in the country to guarantee all year round food production. It is very important to note the directives of Mr. President when he declared the national state of emergency on food security thus: “There must be an urgent synergy between the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Water Resources to ensure adequate irrigation of farmlands and to guarantee that food is produced all year round.” It is on this note that the Ministry shall make strategic investment in renewable irrigation solutions like solar-powered irrigation pumps for small-holder farmers.

Conduct a comprehensive review of all existing agricultural laws and legislation to fast-track necessary amendments and enactments to support farmers’ welfare and private sector participation in agriculture and food security;
Develop a standard framework and guide for ‘Ease of Doing Agriculture and Food Security (EDAFS)’ operations/projects/business in Nigeria;
Identify all available vacant farmlands in various Federal Government Institutions (Universities, Polytechnics, Colleges of Education, Unity Schools, federally owned regimented areas like the military, police and para-military allocated vacant arable lands) to bring them into food production to enhance our food security indices.

Collaborate and partner with states to revive secondary school farms to enhance food security and agri-business enterprises; promote urban agriculture that is technology-enabled and especially driven by innovations and the passions of our teeming youths;
Enhance the implementation of the National Livestock Transformation Plan for increased productivity and job creation; deepen engagement between farmers, herders, traditional institutions and communities to promote peaceful coexistence and conflict resolution.

Develop and promote a performance based agricultural extension system;
Promote the establishment of agricultural marketing incubation centres (Agribusiness Development Centres) for youth and women across the ix (6) geo-political zones;
Capacity building to strengthen the farm inputs regulatory functions to enable them play their regulatory role to checkmate the infiltration of adulterated farm inputs i.e. fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides in the country.

Institutionalization in the Ministry and consolidation of Nigerian Food System Dashboard for informed quality planning, policy decision and information dissemination on the state of food and nutrition in the Country.
Ensure the development of a robust and sustainable innovation ecosystem, a call for application for agronnovation enterprise and venture development competition targeting Nigerian youths is being developed.

Medium term actions – 2024 -2026
Development of digital/ICT Mobile-based Agro-industry System and E-extension platforms to support farmers through the establishment of the national centres in the 6 agro-ecological zones of Nigeria while the command and control office will be here in Abuja ;
Meat, dairy, eggs, fish and other protein from animal sources will receive our special intervention to increase productivity target of annual growth rate of 10% year on year.

Our interventions will accelerate the uptake of Minimum Viable Products from our institutions and agencies in the agricultural mechanization and implements production space in Nigeria for full commercialization by the private sector investment development of comprehensive soil fertility mapping and soil information system for food security. Development and implementation of the National Farmers Soil Health Card Scheme to increase productivity;
Up-scaling and Out-scaling of various agricultural value chain projects in crops, livestock, fisheries and support services under the annual appropriation and special interventions;
Using Fintech solutions, wallets shall be created for all financial disbursements to deliver directly to the targeted end users.

Priority shall be given to the use of digital and DEFI solutions to reform Bank of Agriculture and Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Corporation among others conduct standard feasibility and viability studies for commodity board operations in Nigeria to set up world class accredited laboratories in our Research Institutes that will receive and be governed by international standard organization -ISO certification and other regional, continental and international permits to validate the quality of our exports and certification before shipment.

Develop a new Intergovernmental partnership framework for the implementation of mutually beneficial agricultural projects between federal, state and local governments to strengthen commodity exchange for agriculture in collaboration with the federal ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment to revive and promote home economics and food and nutrition knowledge transfers and practices at the State and Local Governments level.

Also speaking the minister of State Senator Dr. Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, while making his remarks said the ministry is working very hard for state levels for food and nutrition security; development and promotion of cooperative models for impactful agricultural development across the various agriculture value-chains;
Promotion and strengthening of Agro-Rangers to include other paramilitary to assist in solving the problems of civil insecurity at the farm level.

” Our long term actions – 2024 -2027
Development of a national agricultural database for planning and implementation of agriculture and food security programs and initiatives. We are committed to working with relevant MDAs, private sector and international development partners to co-create a functional digital transformation platforms that will facilitate data driven precision farming, climate resilience and smart agricultural practices including e-extension services.”

Technology/ICT enabled farms and farmers enumeration and mapping in collaboration with states, local governments and development partners;
repositioning the Universities of Agriculture, Veterinary Medicines and Faculties of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicines to key into our agricultural transformation through the development of practical approaches for production and mechanization.

We are set to unlock the job creation potentials of cold chain systems by encouraging private sector participation in community cold chain enterprises. The target is to incentivize the establishment of new food storage ventures across the country with direct and indirect new job creation.

Reform and remodel the Federal Colleges of Agriculture (FCAs) and the Agricultural and Rural Management Training Institute (ARMTI) to focus on vocational skills development & management training for agriculture and food security issues;
Development of critical mass of agricultural breeders (crops, livestock, and fisheries) and other emerging knowledge areas in ICT for agriculture (smart agriculture) to position our agricultural production system for the challenges of feeding an increasing population under scarce and challenged resource base.

Provide support for acquiring advanced laboratories equipment to drive new One health approach for veterinary practices while ensuring collaboration with human health practitioners and researchers to achieve Nigeria’s One health.
Establishment of new agro tourism hubs where our farms and national agricultural heritage can be made to create new wealth and jobs. Our target is to strengthen existing investments and encourage the youth and the practitioners/ investors in the hospitality industry to establish new agro tourist centres across the country.

Review of existing curriculum for all fields of agriculture in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Education, National Universities Commission (NUC) National Board of Technical Education(NBTE) and the National Commission for Colleges of Education towards the production of future agricultural graduates that are prepared for the next generation of agriculture (Agriculture 4.0);

Establishment of Animal Disease Free Zones and of compartmentalization for export of livestock and livestock product;
Conduct a scientific migratory pattern studies on migratory birds (pest) to develop intervention map and mitigation measures for the control of trans boundary pests establishing of feed and other input products and prices in poultry value chain; strengthening the Community of Practice (CoP) for knowledge exchange and sharing of experiences to promote innovation and best practices amongst Federal, State and Local Government officials involved in agriculture and food security.

Promote viable agricultural mechanization enterprises sand services such as the tractor and equipment e-hailing hiring services at the State and Local Government levels to enhance tractorization establishment of multipurpose Input Resources & Communication Centres (IRCC) across the country in phases. The centres will ensure transparent and accountable last mile delivery of agricultural inputs while creating effective communication platform and co-location of e-extension services digital platforms. This will create huge job opportunities for Nigerian youths and women.

He said, farmers, producers, processors, and marketers shall be given capacity building to increase skill set, and technical know-how for enhance productivity and to reduce wastages;
Partnerships and collaborations anchored on trust and mutually beneficial schemes. Evidence-based results and factual engagements will drive the processes with all stakeholders.

” Staff capacity building in projects monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning framework with emphasis on ICT and digital technology use for efficiency and high performance;
Reviving the Agriculture Departments of Local Government Areas such that in strong and mutually beneficial relations with State’s Ministries of Agriculture and Food Securities/Rural Development.

We shall usher in a renewed working pact under a new Joint Agricultural Project Implementation Committees (JAPIC) at the State Level and Joint Project Implementation Task Teams (JAPITT) at the Local Government Levels. This will be achieved with the support of the National Economic Council under the Office of the Vice President and the National Council for Agriculture and Food Security under our Ministry. The Local Governments Departments of Agriculture to serve as the core- operational hub of projects implementation with buy-in and ownership being built up across the project life cycle; bringing agriculture and food security matter to the grass roots.

National agriculture and food security summit scheduled to hold in November 2023 the summit is essentially programmed to enlist the interest and support of all the actors in Nigeria’s agriculture and food security space in our bid to create the future of affordable and safe nutritious foods while focusing on farmers’ welfare.