EU, others unveil project to boost food production

From Okwe Obi, Abuja

The European Union, Czech Republic, Austria, and Latvia have launched the Twinning Project to improve food security and food systems using climate-smart technologies in Nigeria.

The Program, which is implemented under the EU–Nigeria Twinning project is aimed at deploying expertise from Czech Republic, Austria and Latvia to work with Nigerian to advance climate-smart agriculture and strengthen sustainable food systems in the country.

Minister of State Agriculture and Food Security, Sabi Abdullahi, who after the launch of the EU–Nigeria Twinning Project, yesterday in Abuja, lauded the EU and its member state for the commitment to strengthen Nigeria’s agricultural sector.

Abdullahi noted that Nigeria’s agricultural sector is faced with increasing snags arising from climate change, variability in rainfall patterns, droughts, floods, land degradation, emerging pests and diseases which is affecting agricultural productivity and threatening the livelihoods of farmers.

The minister stressed the need to strengthen the nation’s agricultural systems to become more resilient, productive, and sustainable, hence the importance  of Climate-Smart Agriculture.

According to him, climate-smart agriculture is not only about responding to climate change; but about transforming agriculture to ensure that farmers can increase productivity while protecting the environment and adapting to changing climatic conditions.

He stated that through the EU–Nigeria Twinning Project Nigeria will benefit from valuable technical expertise and knowledge exchange with European partners, and it will also support the review of the country’s national agricultural resilience framework and development of technical guidance on climate-smart agriculture techniques, with the aim of strengthening the policy environment and aligning it with international best practices.

On his part, the Ambassador and Head of delegation of EU to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Gautier Mignot, noted the importance of agriculture to Nigeria’s economy and activities, yet the sector is faced with  significant challenges including climate change and environmental pressures to food insecurity and structural constraints.

Mignot stated that addressing the issues require not only investment, but strong institutions and effective, well-implemented policies, saying  the project will support an aggressive review of the National Agricultural Resilience Framework Policy, the NAF, and related climate-smart agriculture policies.

“It will identify key gaps and provide practical recommendations to strengthen implementation. The ultimate objective is to enhance institutional capacity and ensure that policy is translated to technical improvements for farmers, agribusinesses, and communities across Nigeria. As was said, the twinning is a very powerful instrument that we’ve been using in the EU for decades now,” she said.

Also, the Director of Planning and Policy Coordination, Ibrahim Tanimu, stated that the project is significant because it brings together technical expertise from European institutions and Nigerian professionals to work jointly on critical areas of agricultural policy and climate-smart development which will translate into resilience agriculture for food security in the country.

He added that the project respond to  emerging challenges particularly those posed by climate change, food security and evolving global food systems transformation, and assist the  development of technical guidance on climate smart agriculture practices, which will translate policy into practice implementable actions for farmers, institutions, and other critical stakeholders, across the agricultural value chains