The Federal Government has received the final report of the National Technical Working Group on the $500 million World Bank-supported Sustainable Agricultural Value Chains for Growth Programme, AGROW, signaling the end of the design phase and the start of implementation.
Vice President Senator Kashim Shettima received the report on Tuesday during a briefing at the Presidential Villa in Abuja. He said the programme is designed to bridge the gap between farmers and national economic planning and policy making.
“Today marks the transition of AGROW from programme design to implementation,” the Vice President said. He described the report as “the conclusion of a design process that restores the farmer to the centre of our national economic reasoning, where he has always belonged.”
According to Shettima, the $500 million programme was developed through seven zonal consultations involving 32 states. He noted that $355 million, representing 71 per cent of the financing, will be implemented directly through participating states because “agriculture ultimately takes place within our communities, Local Government Areas and States.”
He said the programme is targeted at “developing a programme rooted in the realities of farmers, delivered through our States, and capable of attracting the private investment required to move agriculture from subsistence to scale.”
The Vice President stressed the importance of agriculture to the economy, noting that the sector accounts for 23 per cent of Nigeria’s GDP and sustains 34 per cent of the workforce.
“When yields rise, food prices ease, rural incomes recover, industries receive raw materials, and the pressure on our cities and foreign reserves begins to relax. When yields fall, the entire economy discovers the price of hunger,” he said. “Productivity on the farm is therefore a question of growth, employment, food security and poverty reduction. What we do to the farm, we do to the nation.”
Shettima also acknowledged that $500 million cannot meet the full scale of demand, citing decades of gaps in extension services, infrastructure, technology, processing and market access. “The appetite is evident. The resources are not yet sufficient,” he added.
With the report submitted, the Vice President approved the formal dissolution of the National Technical Working Group. He said responsibility now passes to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, as Chair of the National Steering Committee and host of the Project Coordination Office.
The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, assured stakeholders of the ministry’s commitment to successful implementation in line with the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. He said the next phase will include the borrowing plan, financing agreement and legal opinion.
Also speaking, Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr. Taiwo Oyedele, said AGROW goes beyond food production and is integral to Nigeria’s economic transformation, macroeconomic stability and job creation.
Nasarawa State Governor, Engr. Abdullahi Sule, and Kaduna State Deputy Governor, Dr. Hadiza Balarabe, pledged their states’ commitment. Balarabe said Kaduna allocates more than 13 per cent of its budget to agriculture and will establish a state-level coordination mechanism for AGROW.
World Bank Programme Leader for AGROW, Ms. Bertine Kamphuis, assured the government of the bank’s continued support, adding that the report will help translate interventions into improved food security and poverty reduction.
Technical Advisor to the Vice President on Agriculture and Executive Secretary of the Presidential Food Systems Coordinating Unit, Ms. Marion Moon, said the working group developed an eight-indicator framework to identify priority value chains using an agroecological approach and consolidated feedback from 32 states.
The AGROW programme is expected to focus on productivity, infrastructure, extension services and market development across participating states.