FG, stakeholders to review NAGS-AP modified framework
Omeiza Bilal
The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, in collaboration with the Bank of Agriculture (BoA) and other relevant stakeholders, has organised a two-day workshop to review the performance of the National Agricultural Growth Scheme and Agro Pocket (NAGS-AP) Project and develop a new implementation framework and operational strategies to enhance food sovereignty.
Delivering the keynote address at the event held in Abuja recently, the Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security, Sen. Dr. Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, stated that the meeting aims to assess the project’s strengths, weaknesses, and identify areas for improvement to make it more efficient, effective, and impactful as well as revolutionize the agricultural ecosystem.
He recalled that the current administration under the leadership of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in pursuance to its Agricultural Renewed Hope Agenda declared Emergency on Food and Nutrition Security so as to pay special attention to the agricultural sector to ensure that food is accessibility, availability and affordability to Nigerians.
The Minister pointed out that the NAGS- AP Project whose focus was on six staple food crops namely wheat, rice, maize, sorghum, soyabean and cassava was put in place to implement the Food Security Support programme geared towards bridging the food supply gaps with a view to guaranteeing national food and nutrition security for the nation.
According to him, “It is worthy of note that during the four (4) seasons of the programme implementation, a total of 2, 536, 184 metric tons of produce were recorded, with an estimated value of N2, 312, 746, 400,000.00.”
“This significant milestone achievement has contributed substantially to increased food availability and the stabilization of food prices in the country. Currently, food prices are declining and efforts are being made to address the high cost of agricultural inputs in order to balance input and output costs”, the Minister emphasized.
Sen. Abdullahi revealed that the NAGS-AP Project, in addiction to implementing one of the AfDB-funded Policy-Based Operations (PBO) projects, is making all necessary arrangements to commence the Implementation of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) project and NAGS 2.0 programme.
He added that the JICA loan project will focus on rice, maize, soybean and cassava production, while NAGS 2.0 will cover wheat and rice production starting from the 2026 wet season.
He noted that under the 2025/2026 dry season farming, the project would focus on rice, maize and cassava production and it will cover all the 36 States and FCT.
Abdullahi further stated that, the two-day meeting was being organized to present new concepts, idea and innovations for consideration with a view to possible adoption.
In his words, “The discussions will follow careful alignments made between the NAGS-AP project and the Bank of Agriculture (BOA) in line with Mr. President directives to develop a new implementation framework and operational strategies that will stand the test of time and will encompass all the relevant stakeholders operating in an ecosystem to produce verifiable result”, the Minister highlighted.
He, therefore, assured that Federal Government and the NAGS-AP Project Secretariat in particular are open to public views or criticism to make the implementation of the NAGS-AP Project more meaningful.
In his opening remarks, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, Dr. Marcus Ogunbiyi, represented by Director, Planning and Policy Coordination, Mr. Ibrahim Tanimu stated that the workshop was organized to examine the NAGS-AP Project past implementation processes with its underlined bottlenecks to chart new strategy to address the deduced loopholes.
He pointed out that the large turnout of participants at the meeting signifies the importance attached to NAGS-AP project by the relevant stakeholders taking into account the land mark achievements and impacts made and created by the project which touched many lives during the four seasons of its implementation.
Earlier, the National Project Coordinator, NAGS-AP, Mr. Ishaku Ado Buba posited that the project aside supporting farmers with critical farm inputs for the production of the priority crops will provide institutional supports for better performances and sustainability particularly in the areas of staple food production.
He added that the support will also include deployment of Agricultural Extension Agents to guide and provide Agricultural Advisory Services, and Quality Control Officers to ensure the supply of guarantee quality agriculture inputs to the farmers for maximum benefits.
