By Israel Bulus, Kaduna

AGRA says it is partnering with State and Federal Governments to mitigate the impact of climate change on agricultural production to ensure food security.

AGRA is an African-based organization that is working towards sustainable farming practices to ensure farmers can sustain and improve their yields, resulting in greater profitability.

Mr Rufus Idris, Country Director, AGRA Nigeria, disclosed this on Tuesday during a one-day ‘Stakeholders Engagement Programme’ held in Kaduna.

The meeting focused on, “Socialisation of Achievements and Environmental and Social Risk Management of AGRA’s Support to Building Famer Resilience in Kaduna and Niger”.

Idris said the organization was working in Nigeria, in particular, to help support food system transformation as required to ensure that Nigeria can grow enough food to feed itself.

He said, “For many years, AGRA has worked in Nigeria with a lot of partners to help transform that space.

“One of our unique models of engagement is working through a consortia model as in the past couple of years, we have had a couple of consortia in Kaduna, Niger.

”We also had a gender consortium with several partners from the private sector, government, NGOs, and farmers, working to address major issues.

“Importantly, we are addressing the issue of resilience that comes with shocks from climate change impact and those shocks require us to embrace more of smart climate agricultural practices.

“The consortiums are working heavily to help farmers embrace innovations in technology that can make them more climate-smart and respond to issues of droughts, pests, floods, and the like.”

The country director said in the past couple of years, the engagement with the consortiums had yielded good results.

He added that from some of the results, farmers now adopt technology that helps them boost their yield.
Idris said: “For instance, people cultivating maize have been able to see growth from 2 to at least 4 metric tons per hectare.

”People who cultivate rice have had a boost from 2 to 4.2 metric tons per hectare and this has also increased their income as well.

“Also, we have been able to see the distance between where farmers have to travel to access inputs.

”Distances that in the past used to be more than 29 km have been reduced within that region to 10 or fewer km, which is also a good improvement.

“Most importantly, farmers growing more resilience to some of those shocks through some of the solutions highlighted at the meeting.”

According to Idris, efforts have been upped by the government to help address the challenges in the agricultural sector.

He said, ”All the investments by the private sector to help transform that space and do better business, including those by AGRA and other donors, will create that kind of system change that we want to see.

”Although the environment is currently being threatened by climate change impact, the meeting aims to create synergy on how to address and build resilience.

“As we also deploy these technology and innovations, we have to be careful that we are not harming the environment.
”That is why we are talking about the environment and waste management system to ensure balance in boosting food.

“We are embracing new technology, innovations to provide food for ourselves but at the time ensure we keep the environment more sustainable and not causing any harm to the environment.”

Idris promised that the organization would continue to work with the government at the state and national levels as well as other partners to help address the government’s priority on Nigeria.

He added, “We will continue to support the private sector partners, the SMEs that need to grow, and our farmers, most importantly, to build resilience.
”It will also increase their yields, productivity, and income and ensure that policies work as well to create a healthy environment within the agricultural space.”

On the challenges of accessibility to farmland and insecurity, the country director said AGRA has a new strategy, ‘AGRA 3. O’, that looks at thriving constraints.

Idris said: “Access to land is very critical to us as AGRA doesn’t own land and cannot provide one.

”But we know the government does and can provide, so we partner with a governments like in Niger and Kaduna State to support building up the agricultural policy.

“In that policy, we have been able to see that women are more affected as they do not have access to land as compared to men.

“We also mitigate the gender policy that makes it all-inclusive as well so that women can also now have access to land to cultivate.

“AGRA is extending similar efforts in Nasarawa State beginning with a support with a policy framework that will capture inclusivity so that nobody is left out.”

On insecurity, Idris said AGRA holds an interface once a year with legislators who were saddled with the provision of agricultural services to look into issues of insecurity.

Mr. Bege Bungwon, Director of Agricultural Services, Kaduna State Ministry of Agriculture, represented Alhaji Murtala Sabo, the Commissioner for Agriculture.

He said AGRA, with other partners, had introduced to the state a flagship program that had impacted the state to track its investment.

He said: “We have profiled all the actors within the sector to know where they operate from as well as the role they play in the agricultural sector.

“AGRA is promoting maize for insurance to a lot of our farmers, and this is evident in the scale-up of the yield.

“Averagely before, we were at 1.5, but I can confidently tell you that most farmers now are at the level of 4 metric tons per hectare, and that is a great achievement.”

The commissioner said that the state was collaborating with AGRA to sensitize the farmers on the dangers of climate change and with the idea of a “smart agriculture” initiative.

He called for continued collaboration, especially with other states in the northern region where food was mostly produced in the country.

Also, Hassan Umar, who represented Alhaji Salihu Boso, Commissioner, Niger Ministry of Agriculture, said that AGRA had been in operation in the state since 2018.

“With the coming of AGRA, there has been a significant improvement in the productivity of rice in particular and maize and soybeans as well.

“The consortium that brought in innovations in terms of imputes, agro-chemicals, access to market and finance have added to the increase of rice production and by extension, the standard of living of the farmers.

“Between 2018 and 2022, AGRA had worked with over 700,000 farmers along the value chain of rice, maize, and soybeans,” Umar said.

He also commended AGRA’s ‘2.0 Strategy’ in the state, which led to the finalization of the agricultural policy.
“For over 20 years, we had a policy that had been on draft, but with the intervention of AGRA, we finalized that policy in 2021, socialized it, and started implementing it.

“It articulates all the areas the government wants to intervene and all the investments that are required in all the value chain of agriculture, livestock and fishery,” Umar said.

Mrs Asibi Hassan, representative of ‘Grassroots Women Farmers’ in Kaduna State, said over 47,000 women drawn from the 23 local government areas in the state had participated in AGRA’s activities.

“The provision of imputes from AGRA had positively impacted our lives as there have been tremendous yields in our produce and from this, most of us have expanded our businesses and can cater for our families.

“Some of us are already into processing like myself, I produce vitamin A maize,” she said.

Hassan further disclosed that before the intervention of AGRA, some of them were only subsistence farmers who cultivated a quarter of a hectare, adding,” but now we can cultivate 2 to 4 hectares.”

She, however, pleaded with especially the government to mitigate the challenges of accessibility to farmlands and insecurity to enable women to thrive in agricultural activities.