By Gabriel Ewepu

ABUJA – A report released by ActionAid Nigeria, AAN, titled ‘Beyond the Official Narratives: ActionAid Nigeria Community Scorecard Report on the NAGS-AP Wheat Dry Season Farming Programme in Nigeria’ has indicated some setbacks experienced in the implementation of the African Development Bank’s $134 million National Agricultural Growth Scheme–Agro Pocket (NAGS-AP) wheat intervention in participating states.

The report, according to the Deputy Country Director, AAN, Suwaiba Muhammad Dankabo, it became imperative to present the report, because AAN believes it deserves serious national attention, therefore, Nigerians need to know about it.

Meanwhile, the $134 million AfDB sector budget support had three major pillars: Pillar 1: Subsidized Inputs via ICT (Agro-Pocket) – supplying heat-tolerant seeds, fertilizers, and agrochemicals via a digital e-wallet platform (50% subsidy) targeting 100,000 farmers. Pillar 2: Extension Services – Deploying State Agricultural Development Programme (ADP) agents to guide farmers through the post-distribution biological cycle. Pillar 3: Financial and Risk Mitigation: Structuring credit access via the Bank of Agriculture (BoA) and agricultural insurance through National Agricultural Insurance Corporation (NAIC).

The Agro-Ecological Targeting: Driven by Climate and Irrigation – The northern clusters: Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Niger and Gombe. The southern experiment: Cross River State (Obudu Cattle Ranch).

Dankabo said, “We have gathered today to publicly share the findings of the assessment and community scorecard report titled ‘Beyond the Official Narratives: ActionAid Nigeria Community Scorecard Report on the NAGS-AP Wheat Dry Season Farming Programme in Nigeria’. 

“This report examines the implementation of the wheat component of the Agro-Pocket under the National Agricultural Growth Scheme for the 2023/24 and 2024/25 dry season farming programme.

“Nigeria imports approximately 90 per cent of its wheat requirements, spending billions of dollars in foreign exchange annually. The NAGS-AP wheat intervention, funded by the African Development Bank to the tune of 134 million US dollars, was designed to change that. It was designed to get subsidised inputs into the hands of smallholder wheat farmers, expand dry-season farming, reduce our import dependency, and strengthen domestic food production.

“These are important and commendable goals. And ActionAid Nigeria supports them fully. But the question we set out to answer with this report is a simple one: are those goals being achieved? Are the farmers who are supposed to benefit actually benefiting? Are the resources reaching those they were designed to reach, including women, youth, and persons with disabilities?

“When public funds of this scale are deployed, citizens have a right to know. Farmers have a right to know. And it is the responsibility of civil society organisations like ours to ensure that the official narrative is tested against the lived experience of the people on the ground. That is what this report does.”

Meanwhile, the report presented by the Team Lead of TSD Consult, Mr. Tunde Salman, said the report identified delays in the delivery of fertilisers and other inputs negatively affected the expected wheat production, saying, “Late land preparation has resulted in portions of the wheat crop being excluded from 0roduction cycle entirely, thereby suppressing the program’s potential output.

“Allegations of political interference populating registration lists with non-farmers, this distorts targeting, depletes resources and creates a secondary black market for subsidized inputs.”

Other constraints contained in the report about the project, was that farmers said the continued importation of heat-tolerant varieties f wheat seeds had made it difficult for them to access it due to lack of multiplication of the seeds locally, and it was also revealed that the programme had a challenge of farmers’ inability to meet up with 50 per cent counterpart funding as required, and that made most farmers to sell their inputs to meet up.

According to the finding indicated input quality which was rated ‘Fair’ to ‘Good’. Imported heat-tolerant varieties performed exceptionally well compared to local strains.

Meanwhile, the report showed a successful output as yields increased from an average of 13 bags to 20+ bags per hectare.

However, the report recommended that there should be a reliable and verifiable beneficiary list that would be published, and also establish seed multiplication centres to reduce importation.