By: AUSTINE AGBO EMMANUEL, Kaduna
Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa, (AGRA) has partnered Kaduna and Niger state governments to transform Nigeria’s agricultural landscape, prioritizing food security and sustainable growth.
The Country Director, AGRA Nigeria Mr. Rufus Idris, emphasized the organization’s commitment to supporting Nigeria’s food transformation at the AGRA’s stakeholders engagement meeting held in Kaduna on Tuesday, noting that AGRA is operating in several African countries, including Nigeria, to ensure affordable, reliable, and nutritious food in the continent.
According to him, AGRA through its unique consortium model, brings together partners from the private sector, government, NGOs, and community organizations to address major issues, including resilience and climate change.
He asserted that the Kaduna, Niger and Gender Consortiums have yielded significant results since the NGO embarked on the project.
“Agra is an African based led Organization working to sustainably transform the African food system.
“We are operating in a couple of African countries and Nigeria importantly we are working to help support food transformation so that Nigeria can grow food for themselves as required to help themselves and ensure that the food system is okay to ensure that there is affordable food, reliable food and nutritious food, accessible to all the people in the country
“For many years, Agra has worked in Nigeria with a lot of partners as we try to transform their space.
“One of our unique model of engagement is working through a consortia model in the past couple of years we have had a couple of consortiums we have the Kaduna consortium, we have the Niger Consortium and also the gender consortium as well.
“In that consortium we have several partners from both private sector, government, NGOs and other organizations within the Communities and farmers themselves working to address major issues.
“Importantly we are addressing the issue of resilience we are faced with a lot of shocks today from climate change impacts and those shocks require us to also embrace more of farm smart agricultural practices so the consortium are actually working heavily to help farmers embrace those innovations, technology that can make them a more climate smart and respond to Issue of pest, flood and the rest that we are seeing in that space around the period
“In the past few years we have had a good results from the consortium model and some results we see there for instance has been able to help farmers adopt more innovative solution in technology that helps them to increase their yield. For instance people growing maize have been able to see growth between a two metric tons per hectare yield to atleast gain four metric tons per hectare.
“People that are operating within space of rice for instance has seen growth two metric tons per hectare to atleast getting four point two metric tons per hectare and also in the area of increase in yield they have also been able to see increase in their income which also is a very good thing for us that we have seen in that space.
“Also we have been able to see that the distance between where farmers have to travel to access input, in the past, there use to be 20 kilometres which have been reduced to less than 10kilomitres that they travel to get access to input, which is also a welcome improvement that we seen within that space.
“Also most importantly farmers grow more resilience to some of those shocks through some of the solutions that we talked about here today and that had been addressed
“We know very well that all the efforts that have been put up by government in this country to help address the challenges in agricultural sector all the investment by the private sector are to help transform the space and grow other business.
“All the efforts by groups like Agra and other partners, our donors to create that kind of system change that we want to see within the environment is also currently being threatened by climate change impacts how we can have a sustainable environment also is currently being threatened by climate change impacts. So that’s why we are here talking most importantly about how we can build more resilience to address those challenges and then also as we also deploy those technologies and innovations we have to be careful that we are not also hurting or harming the environment that’s why we are here talking about environment and socal waste management system.
“How do we balance the two, improving more in feeding ourselves, improving more in technology addressing confronting climate change and as thesame time we are keeping the environment more sustainable and we are not causing any harm to the environment.
“That is why we are here today and we have a lot of partners that are here, those that worked with us in the past and those that have not even worked with us but are here to show that they are willing to join that alliance and other consortium to help Agra work to move forward.
“We will continue to do their work here, We will also need to work with government in Nigeria both at the federal and state level to continue to support private partners and the SMEs that they will continue to grow help our farmers up as well and to always support our farmers importantly that we build their resilience, we increase their yield, productivity and income and we ensure that policy work as well as conducive environment as well is been taken care of within the space and we are working to actually improved the vision of Agra in Nigeria.
“In Agra we have a new strategy. Its our Agra 3.0. in this new strategy we are looking at who are the biding constraints that has lingered for a long time that feel we will not be able to crack that nut. And one of the most important part is access to land which is very critical to us because Agra doesn’t own land and cannot provide land but we know government do own and can provide land so what we urged government for instance in Kaduna state and also in Niger state is to support building what we call the agricultural policy in that policy we will be able to see women also feeling more heat of not having access to land compared to men
“We also do what we call the gender policy as well. So women can also be able to have access to land to be able to grow what they need to grow and that’s an effort that we are working on very seriously in Kaduna in partnership with the state government and also Niger state government as well but of course as we have now extend it to other states like Nasarawa State and their likes we also will do thesame thing there to continue to support them with the policy frame work there to ensure that there is an enabling environment to ensure everybody is included in the space of that transformation that we want to see nobody is left behind in that particular project.
“Also at the federal level as well we have adopted Many policies that government can assist in the area of access to land, access to input, finance, high mechanization services and also the security we mentioned earlier. We want to see how Government can ensure that farmers are safe to go back to their farms to cultivate and grow the food that we need in the country that will also contribute to our major progress and we do usually have a normal convey that we have every year with the parliamentarians where we have the senators, and the house of representatives members that are into agriculture to come together and come and talk about issues like this.
“The issue of insecurity was the major one we discussed last December. We are meeting again next few months to also evaluate on how far we have gone with that project and how much do we need to do including new strategy to ensure that we are efficient.” Rufus said.
Speaking with newsmen in Kaduna shortly after the event, the Commissioner of Agriculture Kaduna state, Hon. Murtala Mohammed said that AGRA is promoting maize for a lot of farmers in the state, stressing that the coming of AGRA has scaled up the yield. from 1.5 metric tons per hectare to 4 metric tons per hectare.
Represented by the Director of Agric Services, Ministry of Agriculture Kaduna Bege Dutse Bungwon, the Commissioner added that Kaduna state government in collaboration with AGRA and other actors who are playing equal role are trying to bring relevant actors together so that the Agric sector will grow to the desired goals that they want it to be.
He said, “there was a flagship program that was introduced to us by AGRA and other partners, earnestly that is like a basket that is bringing together actors that are playing in Kaduna state.
“We want to know what you are doing in Kaduna state we want to know where you are operating and also the value chains you are also operating earnestly it has gone a long way to help us to track our investments to know what we are doing in Kaduna state including our achievements, challenges and we know areas that we should concentrate on.
“AGRA introduced this and we have profiled virtually all actors knowing where they are operating and the role they are playing in the agric sector. Agra is promoting maize for a lot of our farmers, a small holder farmers especially, they have scaled up the yield. Averagely before we were at 1.5 but I can confidently tell you that most farmers now are at the range of 4 metric tons per hectare that is a great achievement.
“Not to also downed the role of other actors we have other actors that are also playing equal role all we are trying to do now is to bring them together so that the Agric sector will grow to the desired goals that we want it to be.
“Issue of environment, everybody is aware of what is happening now especially as it relates to climate change. this is a welcome idea. The issue of climate and the environment, if the environment is not good definitely we cannot get anything from Agric.
“So we are doing as a state in collaboration with Agra, we are sensitizing our farmers on the negative impacts of climate change and we are coming up with strategies along with smart agriculture to mitigate most of these challenges.
“That is what the state is currently doing and it is a welcome idea, I can see other states that are here so I think it’s not just to be treated at state level we should collaborate especially as northern regions since that’s where food is mostly produced. So if we can collaborate as a region to address this food Security issues it will be very good development for the region.”
Bege: on our collaboration with maybe Agra and many other organizations, there was a flagship program that was introduced to us by Agra and other partners earnestly that is like a basket that is bringing together actors that are playing in Kaduna state.
We want to know what you are doing in Kaduna state we want to know where you are operating and also the value chains you have been operating earnestly it has gone a long way to help us to track our investments to know what we are doing in Kaduna state including our achievements, challenges and we know areas that we should concentrate on. Agra introduced this and we have profiled virtually all actors knowing where they are operating and the role they are playing in the agric sector. Agra is promoting maize for our farmers, a small holder farmers especially, they have scales up the yield. Averagely before we were at 1.5 but I can confidently tell you that most farmers now are at the range of 4 metric tons per hectare that is a great achievement. Not to also downed the role of other actors we have other actors that are playing equal role all we are trying to do now is to bring them together so that the Agric sector can grow to the desired goals that we want it to be.
Issue of environment, everybody is aware of what is happening now especially as it relates to climate change. this is a welcome idea. The issue of climate and the environment, if the environment is not good definitely we cannot get anything from Agric. So we are doing as a state in collaboration with Agra, we are sensitizing our farmers on the negative impacts of climate change and we are coming up with strategies along with smart agriculture to mitigate most of these challenges. That is what the state is currently doing and it is a welcome idea, I can see other states that are here and I know it’s not to be treated at state level we should collaborate especially as northern regions since that’s where food is mostly produced. So if we can collaborate as a region to address this food Security Issues it will be very good for the country.
In thesame development, the Commissioner of Agriculture Niger state, Hon. Salihu Musa Bawa Bosso disclosed that the AGRA initiative since 2018 is the best thing that happened to them as a state.
The Commissioner who was represented by Mr. Hassan Umar from the Ministry have succeeded in improving the productivity of rice particularly apart from the two other major crops which are maize and soya beans since the project came to Niger state in 2018.
Noting some of the AGRA’s intervention, Umar noted that the NGO in their 2.0 strategy between 2019 and 2022 help them to finalize their Agricultural policies, stressing that between 2018 and 2022 they had worked with over 700,000 farmers along the value chain of rice, maize and soya beans.
Umar said, “with the coming of Agra since 2018 they have succeeded in improving the productivity of rice particularly apart from the two other major crops which are maize and soya beans.
“Rice is a dominant crop in Niger state so the intervention of Agra interns of the consortium that brought in innovations interns of inputs agrochemicals, access to market and access to finance had actually improved the yield and productivity of rice in Niger state which subsequently led to the improve in the standard of living of rice farmers in the state.
“Between 2018 and 2022 I know they must have worked with over 700,000 farmers along the value chain of rice, maize and soya beans. So we are grateful for Agra intervening in Niger state as one of the key states in this country.
“Secondly one of the greatest thing that as a ministry that we know Agra has done in the state in the last intervention, 2.0 strategy between 2019 and 2022 was actually finalization of our Agricultural policies.
“As far as I know, for the past 20 years we have the policy that has been on draft but with the intervention of Agra we finalize that policy in 2021, socialize it and started implementing it.
“The policy and investment plans articulates all the areas that the government wants to intervene on and all the investment that are required in all the value chains of agriculture.
“We also have an investment plans that articulated all the investments that we required to actually boost investment in agriculture in Niger state, Agra facilitated that document too. That document was for 5 years expires last year and Agra again in their 3.0 strategy are bringing in fund again to actually update these two documents which are very key documents for agricultural development of every entity, state or country.
“So we are grateful to Agra for that. Again, Agra also intervene in so many other aspects for example in extensions. We all know the challenges bedeviling the extension in this country particularly the man power when you talk about public sector essential services, these have been dwindling but Agra intervention, it introduces this private sector led intervention where private sector will now come in to the extension services and also boost it help. Agra has done this in their first strategy and they are also going to do it in the second strategy.
“So going forward we believe that further intervention by Agra in their 3.0 strategy will actually consolidate all these achievements that hay been made in Agra 2.0 for the benefits of the state and their farmers.
“We all know that Niger state currently is leading in the country interns of agricultural development. Everybody worldwide ascertains that Niger state leads the agricultural development of this country because of the efforts of the governor of the state. So Agra with their intervention also has further fast track whatever is the state’s government policies.
“Before intervention the yield of rice in Niger state revolves around 1.9, 2.0 metric tons per hectare but with Agra intervention it has risen to 3.5 to 4.0 hectares. It was ascertain in the presentation that we just had now. So Agra intervention actually helped in improving rice production in the state and we are proud that rice is one of our key crops as no state can compete with Niger state when it comes to rice in Nigeria in Niger state. we have the land, we have the water resources, we are FADAMA potentials and we are utilizing it.”
Asabe Hassan, a smallholder farmer from the grassroots women farmers in Kaduna state also testified that “AGRA has changed our lives because we are over 40,000 women that participates in Agra activities. Most of our women today if you see them with this project we are all over the 23 Local Government Areas we have benefitted from Agra.
“We don’t have anything to say to Agra, only Almighty God will bless them because most of us we are widows in our grassroots and Agra brought good input and everything for us that enable us to farm. Some of us have trained our children, some of us we are into business while others like myself are into processing, victim A maize through the program of Agra.
“Before the coming of Agra, we were only into all these traditional means of farming but with the coming of Agra we use to farm maybe quarter of hectare, but with the coming of Agra I can farm two hectares of maize, one hectare of sorghum and one hectare of soya beans. You know they have really helped us and most of our women that are participating in Agra activities some of them has one hectare of farm now.
“It has helped in improving our livelihoods because even my children I trained them with this project. You know they assisted us with the input, and this project helps us in impacting our lives especially me as a grassroots women farmer I have impacted the lives of my children and they almost the grassroot women that did not know how to farm, they now participate in farming now because of the intervention of this Agra project.
“Now as at this year, we went for land that we are going to do our farming. We went to one man in Soba LG and he told us the price of one hectare of land, and as grassroot women farmers the amount is too much and we are pleading the government to help all these women farmers in the whole 23 LG because women are the nation. Without woman, no nation.
“So we are appealing to the state government in the whole 36 states of the federation, not just Kaduna state that the government will help us with land for our farming. The land is our major challenge and insecurity. if they can address that for us, it will really help us.” She appealed.
