By Gabriel Ewepu

ABUJA – AMID daunting challenges facing food production, accessibility and affordability, the Federal Government and International Fund for Agricultural Development, IFAD, Thursday, held a joint annual review of Nigeria Country Strategic Opportunities Programme, COSOP, 2024-2029 for the agricultural sector in order to upscale inclusivity, farmers’ resilience, digital solution and nutrition.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development, IFAD, with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, in partnership with the Federal Ministry of Finance, FMF, hosted the review, which basically focused on upscaling inclusivity, expansion of the rural economy and addressing climate change challenges affecting food security, and boosting farmers’ resilience and creating deeper understanding and ownership of the priorities of the COSOP.

The review also was to make participants understand how COSOP is implemented including results achieved seeing it from different perspectives; and also discuss achievable strategies that bring about a better implementation approach of the COSOP.

Meanwhile, the Nigeria COSOP basically promotes inclusivity and rapid growth and development of rural economy focusing on market-driven, agri-food system transformation, where food and nutrition security for 1.2 million beneficiaries (smallholder farmers and entrepreneurs, women and youth, Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, and People With Disabilities, PWDs).

In a remark by the Director, Projects Coordinating Unit, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, Bukar Musa, acknowledged and said, “Through this partnership and cooperation, we have been able to reach underserved rural communities, empower vulnerable populations, and promote resilience in the face of challenges such as climate change, economic fluctuations, and insecurity.

“In line with the COSOP strategic objectives, IFAD and FGN have made headways in productivity, nutrition and resilience through agribusiness empowerment of smallholder farmers in various value chain sectors. The COSOP objectives are achieved through the ongoing FGN/IFAD projects – VCDP, LIFE-ND and SAPZ and non-sovereign initiatives such as Zero Hunger, AgriHub and Babban Gona.”

The Country Director, IFAD, Dede Ekoue, explained that review is to basically show key results of the strategy for 2024, and how to improve the partnership.

According to Ekoue, “It was a very successful event because of the strong mobilization of the federal government, the participation of development partners, and above all, the strong representation of farmers that are beneficiaries of our program.

“So this annual review helped us highlight some key progress made on strengthening the productivity, the production, and the income of smallholder farmers.

“This Programme also puts an emphasis on how our projects financed by the federal government and IFAD are helping farmers not only produce but also process the products and access the markets.

“In addition, we talked about the importance of nutrition because food security and nutrition is a key priority for the government. So there was a good recommendation on how to enhance this area.”

She also added that, “New areas for the new strategy of cooperation, because this cooperation strategy runs from 2024-2029, are the digital solutions, and it is an area that will continue to scale up. Another area is to take into account is youth and women, and this is something we have been doing but with the new strategy, everybody agrees that we have to scale up this support to youth and women.

“The third area is providing stronger support to fragile areas or to people who are more vulnerable, for example, those who are landless or who are IDP returnees. So this is an element that we thought it was important to keep in the context.”

Meanwhile, she (Ekoue) made it known that the new COSOP supported training on good practice, technology and climate resilience, which also supported at least 74,000 farmers and agro-entrepreneur in boosting their production capacity and productivity through access to training, input and other equipment.

“Focus is put on climate resilience as we know, it has a significant impact on the agro-productivity and food system in general. The COSOP was also instrumental during this year 2024 in reaching out at least 20,000 persons in rural area access financial service and 10,000 beneficiary access financial literacy.

“The projects have supported at least 24,000 women, youth, start-up income generation activities. With regard to the matter of land, the projects helped beneficiaries’ access over 30,000 hectares of land.

“As you know access to land is critical especially for youth and women and other vulnerable groups. One thing that is clear, all these results are part are due to positive partnership between the Federal Government and effective partnership between the states and the beneficiary communities”, she said.

Meanwhile, she highlighted how partnerships with the African Development Bank, the Islamic Development Bank, and the French Development Agency to design the Value Chain Programme in Northern Nigeria, VCN, are adding serious values to the programmes.

She also added that, “To be scaled up in the new COSOP is the digital solution in line with the National Agricultural and Technology Innovation Policy (NATIP), the new COSOP also aim to strengthen gender equality by a moving from gender mainstreaming to gender transformation to really affect the deeper change in promoting equality among all women and men and in accessing productive resources and in leadership and managing workloads.

“Nutrition is a key feature of the new COSOP which him to also a strengthen nutrition of a 45,000 beneficiary household members.”

A beneficiary from Enugu State, Lovelyn Ejim who is also the Vive Chairman, Commodities Alliance Forum, CAF, in the State, expressed excitement, appreciation and commended the impact the International Fund for Agricultural Development, Value Chain Development Programme, IFAD VCDP, had made in her life, livelihood and family after she received the training on the rice value chain and the starter packs that she received from IFAD to start her own business.

“As a matter of fact, IFAD has been with us since 2020, and we have done a lot of activities with them. I started as a farmer who do production of rice, and along the line, I saw the importance of going into processing, and I have already entered into processing when IFAD came in. So, in all our activities, they are all geared towards developing the farmer to come from subsistence agricultural level to a standard that you can be comfortable and feed your family.

“And this is what we really need in this country. So, IFAD VCDP as a project has come at the right time, when Nigeria needed them the most, when the rural farmers needed them the most.

“Take for instance, during the time of COVID, had it not been the intervention of IFAD VCDP that was already with us at that particular time, so many people could have been something else. It came to salvage most of the farmers, giving them that hope that you can still sustain yourself, you can still live.

“You farm, you process, you market, and they provide all the marketing activities you need. They gave us equipment, input, they built market stalls for us, and all these things are what we need as human beings to progress, and IFAD VCDP were there to hold our hands, and great thanks to the Federal Government of Nigeria, who gave them that enabling environment because had it been they did not welcome them, IFAD could have not come in.

“And to all the state governors of the states that for accepting IFAD VCDP”, she added.

Also as the Human Network Leader for IFAD activities, she (Ejim) highlighted some of their challenges, including; access to finance, high cost of transportation, and insecurity.