Nasarawa State government has secured a $370, 000 grant from Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) Nigeria to enhance inclusive transformation in the agricultural sector.
AGRA country director, Mr Rufus Idris, disclosed this at the inaugural meeting of the Nasarawa State Capability for Inclusive Agriculture Transformation Project in Lafia.
Mr. Idris said AGRA was founded in 2006 by a former secretary-general of the United Nations (UN), Dr Kofi Anan, to ensure that Africans take responsibility of transforming their agriculture and food system by themselves with the needed knowledge and expertise.
He said AGRA had been working in Nigeria for 17 years in Kaduna and Niger states, supporting government, smallholder farmers and various private sector groups to boost agricultural production.
He added that AGRA’s partnership with Nasarawa State became imperative given the various initiatives of the Gov. Abdullahi Sule administration and the state’s critical role in transforming Nigeria’s agriculture space.
He said the project funded by AGRA was aimed at developing an agricultural policy and creates an agricultural investment plan for the state.
Idris said the project would also build the capacity of members of staff of the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources to effectively drive the transformation initiative in Nasarawa State.
He said the project domiciled in the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources would be implemented by Jesnoch International, a servicing firm.
Idris added that the implementation would be supported by the Nasarawa Investment and Development Agency (NASIDA) and Nasarawa Agricultural Development Programme (NADP).
He appealed to all stakeholders in the agriculture sector in the state to support and make input into the project to achieve the desired result.
Also speaking, the permanent secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Mr Umar Abdullahi, thanked AGRA for the partnership to transform the agricultural ecosystem in the state.
Represented by Mr Ibrahim Abdullahi, the managing director of NASIDA, the permanent secretary said agriculture was pivotal to Nasarawa’s economic development agenda, being an agrarian state.
He said the partnership with AGRA would deepen the agricultural reforms embarked upon by Governor Sule’s administration since inception in 2019.
On his part, Dr Charles Iyangbe, the chief executive officer of Jesnoch International, the implementing firm, said the project would run from January 2025 to June 2027.
Iyangbe said the project entails working within institutional framework and enabling environment around agribusiness to produce an improved agricultural policy document to deliver food system transformation in the state.
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