By. Paul Otung (PhD Econs), Senior Regional Specialist, Policy and State Capability, AGRA West Africa & Esther Ibrahim (PhD. Agric Econs), Program Officer AGRA, Kaduna
West Africa is a farming region, with agriculture employing between 70 and 80 percent of the workforce in most countries. Yet major challenges remain.
Most farmers are smallholders cultivating less than two hectares. In Nigeria, for example, 30 to 50 percent of agricultural output is lost after harvest—not because farmers lack the skills to harvest, but because rural roads, storage facilities, and market information systems are inadequate. Governments and their partners recognize these gaps and have been working to address them. AGRA has helped overcome the usual capability trap by co-creating state-led solutions in Kaduna, Nasarawa, and Niger States.
What does state capacity look like when it begins to work? Kaduna, despite ongoing constraints in policy design, implementation, stakeholder coordination, and information flows, offers an instructive example of how system-wide state capability can function. Through regular, institutionalized sector coordination meetings, the state has broken down bureaucratic silos.
Processors, marketers, researchers from institutions like the National Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison Services (NAERLS), and farmers’ associations now sit at the same table. This ensures that every stakeholder along the value chain is aligned toward a single, cohesive goal.
With AGRA’s support, the Kaduna State Ministry of Agriculture now has an Agricultural Intelligence Unit. It may sound bureaucratic, but in the Nigerian context, its work is quietly transformative. The unit tracks fertilizer access in real time, identifies underserved farmer communities, and uses that data to guide policy interventions.
The unit also geotracks tractors, so the government can see where land is being plowed and on what scale. Further, it monitors crop (maize and rice) prices across state markets, providing critical information to farmers on when to sell at favorable prices, while civil society organizations can see how much the state is allocating to each budget line. This improves information and builds better coordination, supporting policy advocacy for farmers. None of this is glamorous, but all of it matters for sector transformation.
The State has developed an agricultural dashboard, a live, accessible source of information on commodity prices, crop yields, market locations, and seasonal farming guidance. Kaduna’s Geographic Information Service has processed more than 80,000 land titles, helping create a more transparent land administration and market system.
These are practical reforms that are already making a difference.
The ministry utilized the coordination platform for a specialized seed bank initiative. The channels of communication and execution were clear; therefore, more than 4,000 ginger farmers received clean, improved planting materials. This response didn’t just rescue a vital cash crop; it restored trust in public institutions.
And perhaps the most forward-thinking result of this systemic upgrade is Kaduna’s pioneering framework on contract farming. As the first state in Nigeria to introduce a structured contract farming policy, Kaduna is actively transforming agriculture from a subsistence gamble into a reliable commercial enterprise.
The question worth asking is: why is this still exceptional? Part of the answer lies in funding—specifically, the chronic shortage of public resources directed at the right sector priorities. The Maputo Declaration, signed more than two decades ago, committed African governments to allocating at least 10 percent of national budgets to agriculture.
This commitment was reaffirmed during the Kampala Declaration, signed in 2025.
Kaduna State has allocated between nine and eleven percent to agriculture in recent years, at times meeting or exceeding the 10 percent benchmark. More importantly, it is strengthening the state’s capability to ensure allocated funds are executed and deliver results.
Many states allocate funds but fail to spend them. A capable state does more than budget well—it releases the money, tracks where it goes, and demands results.
This is not a finished story. In Kaduna, about 43 percent of children under five years are still stunted, and the shortage of extension information remains, but is narrowing. Trust between farmers and the institutions meant to serve them is improving, driven by better information and efforts to strengthen citizen engagement and collective action in the agricultural sector.
Even so, government direction still matters, and the lesson is transferable across the region. AGRA’s investments in policy and state capability, at both regional and country levels, are built on a simple but often overlooked insight: funds, land, and even good weather are necessary but insufficient conditions.
What turns agricultural potential into food and nutritional security is a strong public institutional capacity to design smart policies and implement them. This is where many countries in the region continue to struggle. The private sector can only invest where the state is present. Farmers will adopt technologies only if they are accessible.
Markets will function efficiently where credible information is widely available and not controlled by middlemen, and governments have the capacity to provide credible alternatives. That is what the Kaduna State Agricultural Intelligence Unit is doing.
West Africa’s farms are not falling behind because farmers are unwilling to work. They are behind because governments’ investments do not match what is required to build strong state capability.
Agricultural transformation must not be treated as a line item; it must be built as a system—led by the States. And Nigeria’s Kaduna Agricultural Intelligence Unit is more than a data tool. It is a sign of a state capacity that has chosen to pay attention. The region needs more of that.
Writers: Paul Otung (PhD. Econs), Senior Regional Specialist, Policy and State Capability, AGRA West Africa & Esther Ibrahim (PhD. Agric Econs), Program Officer AGRA Nigeria.
