Nigeria has received the final report of the National Technical Working Group on the World Bank-supported $500 million Sustainable Agricultural Value Chains for Growth Programme (AGROW), marking the conclusion of the programme’s design phase and its transition to implementation.

This is just as Vice President Kashim Shettima said government, through the AGROW programme, is bridging the gap between farmers and national planning as well as policy making decisions at the centre.

Speaking Tuesday when he received the report during a briefing at the State House, Abuja, Shettima noted that while the challenge in the agricultural sector had been the distance between farmers who till the earth and the systems that determine what their labour is worth, the government is set to implement the process of shortening that distance.

The US$500 million World Bank-supported programme was developed through seven zonal consultations involving 32 states, reflecting the increasing commitment of subnational governments to agricultural development and their readiness to assume greater responsibility for productivity, infrastructure, extension services and market development.

Speaking during the meeting, the Vice President described the AGROW programme report as “the conclusion of a design process that restores the farmer to the centre of our national economic reasoning, where he has always belonged.

“Today marks the transition of AGROW from programme design to implementation,” he added, maintaining that the World Bank US$500 million Nigerian agriculture programme is targeted at “developing a programme rooted in the realities of farmers, delivered through our States, and capable of attracting the private investment required to move agriculture from subsistence to scale.”

Shettima observed that agriculture, a sector that accounts for 23 per cent of the nation’s GDP and sustains 34 per cent of its workforce, must not be treated as “a negligible sector, attended to at leisure and financed at the margins.”

Noting that most Nigerians earn a living from the tilling of the soil, he said no other sector carries as many livelihoods or touches as many households as the agriculture sector.

According to him: “When yields rise, food prices ease, rural incomes recover, industries receive raw materials, and the pressure on our cities and foreign reserves begins to relax. When yields fall, the entire economy discovers the price of hunger.

“Productivity on the farm is therefore a question of growth, employment, food security and poverty reduction. What we do to the farm, we do to the nation.”

The Vice President expressed satisfaction with the response from states, saying it revealed the scale of the opportunity before the nation, even as he stressed that the participation of 32 states in seven consultations to shape AGROW reflects “both the urgency of the challenges confronting agriculture and the growing appetite across Nigeria for agricultural development and investment.”

On the method of implementation, Shettima said, “Of the US$500 million financing envelope, US$355 million, representing 71 per cent, will be implemented through participating States. This rightly places State Governments at the centre of delivery because agriculture ultimately takes place within our communities, Local Government Areas and States.

“The participation of 32 States, however, also makes one fact unmistakable: US$500 million cannot meet the scale of demand or close the gaps accumulated over decades in extension services, infrastructure, technology, processing and market access. The appetite is evident. The resources are not yet sufficient.”

He commended members of the National Technical Working Group for their expertise, commitment and discipline in the process of producing the report, noting that by bringing together federal and state institutions, the private sector and development partners, the group “ensured that the programme was inclusive, evidence-based and technically rigorous.

“I hereby accept the Final Report and approve the formal dissolution of the National Technical Working Group, its mandate having been fully and satisfactorily discharged. Responsibility now passes to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, as Chair of the National Steering Committee and host of the Project Coordination Office,” the Vice President declared.

Shettima also acknowledged the Presidential Food Systems Coordinating Unit for coordinating the design process and serving as Secretariat to the Technical Working Group.

Earlier, Nasarawa State Governor, Abdullahi Sule informed the Vice President of the commitment of the sub-nationals, stating that at a previous Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) meeting, the World Bank had briefed the governors on the objectives of the working group and the initiative.

He thanked Shettima for giving the respective states the opportunity to maximise the initiative, adding that the governors are fully in support of the laudable programme.

Also speaking, Deputy Governor of Kaduna State, Hadiza Balarabe, expressed the state’s readiness to take advantage of the initiative, assuring the Vice President that the state government would establish a state-level coordination mechanism to ensure the timely implementation of the programme.

She said that already, the Kaduna State government allocates more than 13 per cent of its budget to agriculture, underscoring the importance of the sector as one of the key drivers of economic transformation in the state.

On his part, Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, thanked all partners in the project for their unwavering commitment, noting that the presentation of the report, which is a critical step towards implementation, was a reflection of what is possible if all stakeholders work together.

On the significance of AGROW, the Minister said the programme goes beyond food production as it constitutes an integral part of Nigeria’s economic transformation, macroeconomic stability and job creation drive, among other benefits.

In his remarks, Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, applauded the leadership of Vice President Shettima in mobilising stakeholders for the design of the AGROW programme regarded as a game-changing intervention in Nigeria’s agricultural sector.

He assured all stakeholders of the ministry’s commitment to successful implementation of the programme in line with the Renewed Hope Agenda of Tinubu administration.

Kyari said the completion and presentation of the programme report by the National Technical Working Group (NTWG) has shifted attention to the next phase comprising the borrowing plan, financing agreement and legal opinion, among others, to complete the cycle from project design to implementation.

In her remarks, the World Bank Programme Leader for AGROW, Ms. Bertine Kamphuis, briefed the Vice President on the outcome of the working group’s national assignment, which, according to her, was initiated by the President and the Vice President.

She assured the Nigerian government of the bank’s continued support, adding that with the final report, Nigeria can do more to ensure that interventions translate into improved food security while lifting Nigerians out of poverty.

The official also noted that the PSFCU played a critical role in coordinating the states, adding that stronger private sector participation is required across the nation’s agricultural value chain.

She backed the creation of the right policies and an enabling environment for the private sector to step in while highlighting that critical institutions such as the Bank of Agriculture would play their role in delivering this agenda.

Highlighting the key achievements of the National Technical Working Group (NTWG), the Technical Advisor to the Vice President on Agriculture and the Executive Secretary of the Presidential Food Systems Coordinating Unit (PFSCU), Ms Marion Moon, said the group developed an eight-indicator framework to identify priority agricultural value chains by adopting an agroecological approach that matches crops and investments to Nigeria’s soils, rainfall, and growing conditions.

She added that the group conducted seven zonal consultations involving 32 states and key agricultural stakeholders, while consolidated stakeholder feedback informed the final AGROW programme design.

Highpoint of the meeting was the presentation of the programme report to the Vice President by the NTWG. (AriseNews TV)

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