Food security: Niger to boost agric sector with N476m grant

By Chinyere Anyanwu, [email protected]

The Alliance for Green Revolution in Nigeria (AGRA) is set to partner the Niger State Ministry of Agriculture to boost the state’s sector with a grant of $280,000 (N476 million).

AGRA is providing a grant of $280,000 for the project while the Niger State government will provide a counterpart fund of $27,000 for the implementation of the project.

Speaking during an inception meeting in Minna, the AGRA coordinator in the state, Godswill Aguiyi, stated that the project is aimed at strengthening agricultural policies and improving data management systems in the state. “We believe that there are a lot of capacity gaps and so we intend to articulate all the investments in the state that are disjointed. We want to have a data system that can manage the coordination, especially between the federal and state ministries of agriculture,” he said.

Aguiyi noted that the project would also focus on upgrading existing agricultural policies in alignment with the current priorities of the new administration.

“We are also aware that the agricultural sector is divided into four ministries, so we intend to take data from these ministries and let people see the opportunities in the state for investment and partnership for the public on what is happening.

“When we strengthen their systems, we’ll have information from various systems uploaded to a central dashboard. We’ll also want to have data from all development partners to showcase what they are doing so that potential investors can be guided. Outdated policies will also be reviewed and improved in alignment with current realities,” Aguiyi said.

In his remarks, the Permanent Secretary, Niger State Ministry of Agriculture, Mathew Ahmed, said the grant would enable the ministry to analyse its activities and identify areas in need of improvement.

He said, “This AGRA grant will be used to coordinate data from the Ministry of Nomadic/Pastoral Affairs, Ministry for Trade, Industry, Investor and Private Sector Development, Ministry for Water Resources, NAMDA, private sector partners as well as Niger Foods.

“We’ll use the grant for this project to review our agric policy as well as the state’s investment plan for the sector.  We’ll update and review the agricultural policy, keeping in mind what has worked well, what hasn’t worked well, why it didn’t and what the challenges are, to ensure we have a smooth running in line with the farmer governor agenda.”

For his part, the Country Director of Synergos, Victor Adejoh, explained that the project, aside from reviewing existing agricultural policies, will ensure that the state aligns with current climate issues.

“We hope that the state will be responsive to climate change issues happening not just in Niger State. Our goal is also to ensure sector coordination, address lack of accountability among value chain actors and also improve the weak collaboration between government and other stakeholders,” he said.

Adejoh, while lauding the state government for its current efforts at revamping the agricultural sector, urged the state government to allocate 10 per cent of its expenditure to the sector for improved results.

The meeting was tagged, “Institutional Strengthening, Enhanced Policy Implementation for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems in Niger State Project.”