By Gabriel Ewepu and Favour Ulebor

As part of efforts and support to end high food prices and reduce biting hunger in Nigeria, Actionaid Nigeria, AAN, Monday, disclosed to equip 120,000 women and youth farmers with agroecological skills to boost food security.

The disclosure was made by the Deputy Country Director and Director of Programmes, AAN, Suwaiba Dankabo, in an address of welcome at the National Summit on Agroecology and Public Private Partnership, PPP, on Agroecology, in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, the Nigeria Agribusiness Group, NABG, the Global Environment Facility, GEF, Small Grants Programme implemented by UNDP, Small Scale Women Farmers Organisation in Nigeria, SWOFON, Be The Help Foundation, BHF, and Heinrich Böll Stiftung, HBS, in Abuja, where Dankabo also explained that the three-year project is under the ActionAid International, AAI, Transformative Impact Fund designed to improve food and nutrition security and enhance agroecological skills of 120,000 Smallholder Women Farmers, SHWF, and young people.

According to her, the project is to facilitate access to early maturing seeds, seedlings, livestock, and poultry, thus supporting agroecological practices, indigenous seeds, and biodiversity preservation for increased farm yields, and added that the project is being implemented in Ondo, Delta, Ebonyi, Jigawa and the FCT and national level.

She said: “Strategic Partnerships for Agroecology and Climate Justice in West Africa (SPAC-West Africa), Nigeria funded by ActionAid International (AAI) Transformative Impact Fund (3yrs Project) is designed to improve food and nutrition security and enhance agroecological skills of 120,000 Smallholder Women Farmers (SHWF) and young people by facilitating access to early maturing seeds, seedlings, livestock, and poultry, thus supporting agroecological practices, indigenous seeds, and biodiversity preservation for increased farm yields.”

She further stated that, “Through Agroecology budget monitoring, tracking, and advocacy towards the expansion of the fiscal spaces, rights holders will significantly benefit from budget increases and allocations in agriculture. Agroecological model farms will also be set up and scaled by smallholder women farmers (SHWF) to increase the adoption of agroecological practices. The project is being implemented in Ondo, Delta, Ebonyi, Jigawa, and the FCT and National Level.

“The majority of people, over 60 per cent of Nigerians, the people who put the food on the table for Nigerians are women, and even if they are not cultivating their own farms, they are working for other people in their own farms. So they constitute the labor force. Beyond the contribution to the labour force, they have been producing a kind of subsistence farming that is taken to the market.

“So the majority of the food that is sold here in Nigeria, not the commercial quantity that people take abroad are produced by women, and we are trying to encourage young people to take on farming as a career, taking pleasure in it, and going into it with all sense of knowledge and understanding of the rudiments and the value chain so that they can do it to the best of their ability, understanding and then also gaining value for what they are doing so that it will reduce the unemployment rate for the young people in Nigeria.”

Meanwhile, she expressed confidence and hoped that “The National Summit on Agroecology and Public – Private Partnership on Agroecology will provide the direction for increased quantity and quality of public financing for agroecology towards increased government political and budget commitments and programme implementations on Agroecology in Nigeria and West Africa.

“Enable the preservation and promotion of Indigenous Seeds, Seedlings, and Livestock for Agro Biodiversity. Support the facilitation of Public-Private Partnerships on agroecology that will further lead to adoption, scale to millions of farmers, and transition to sustainable agriculture practices.”

Also, a researcher, Andrew Iloh, said it is important to ensure agroecology is the way forward for a healthy diet and panacea to food-related diseases in Nigeria.

“We need to move from a Western-style diet with high fats, salt, and processed foods to traditional diets based on local food that will reduce and manage most sickness faced in Nigeria.

“Many of our indigenous foods are rich and highly potential compared to the conventional food we all know.

“Indigenous plants are very high in nutrition and they have very high potential for reducing or managing non-communicable diseases like high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, and amongst others”, Iloh said.