Agric minister calls for expansion of innovative agricultural extension models to tackle food insecurity

Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, has called on agricultural stakeholders to extend the reach of innovative extension service models as a crucial step towards addressing Nigeria’s growing food insecurity.

The call was made during the National Agricultural Extension Service Impact-sharing Workshop, held in Abuja on Wednesday.

Hosted by the USAID Feed the Future Nigeria Agricultural Extension Services Activity in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, the workshop served as a platform to highlight the importance of effective agricultural extension services for smallholder farmers.

Representing the Minister, Dr. Deola-Tayo Lordbanjou, Director of the Federal Department of Agricultural Extension Services, emphasized that achieving food sufficiency in Nigeria would remain challenging without a robust and impactful extension system.

Kyari stressed the importance of scaling up the successes from the collaboration between the Federal Department of Agricultural Extension Services and USAID. This partnership, active since 2020, has provided over two million smallholder farmers across seven states—Benue, Cross River, Delta, Ebonyi, Kaduna, Kebbi, and Niger—with business solutions and innovative agricultural practices. The project is set to conclude in 2025.

In his words, “The Agriculture Extension Service is a strategic vehicle for delivering innovative, effective and innovative solutions to the doorstep of Nigerian smallholder farmers. Without efficient, impactful and responsive Pluralistic agriculture extension we cannot transform agriculture in a way that Nigeria will be food sufficient.

“The USAID Extension Activity enhances the capacity of the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to provide most impactful agricultural practices to smallholder farmers to improve their productivity and income.

“Since 2020, the parties (Federal Department of Extension and USAID Extension Activity) collaborated and promoted the MSME-led extension services delivery. They jointly identified several most impactful agricultural practices as business solutions for the farmers, trained MSMEs and through coaching, transformed them into extension delivery firms. The parties also jointly promoted market aligned business solutions through the Agricultural Development Programmes and the States’ Ministries of Agriculture, to resolve systematic challenges in extension services for smallholder farmers. This partnership, therefore, not only identified business solutions for the smallholder farmers, but also integrated innovative private extension delivery approaches in the National Agricultural Extension Policy and Agricultural Extension Teaching Manual. Both documents will always serve as reference materials for future projects in agriculture in Nigeria.

“There is now an urgent need to scale the results from this collaboration to a wider community of agricultural stakeholders. It is the desire of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, and indeed, every Nigerian to see that we have adequate food, meat, and fibre supplies to meet the nutrition needs of our teeming population and of course, to augment our foreign earnings. Therefore, My Ministry and the Office of the Presidency calls you to action – to scale the models that produced the outcomes and impacts we are showcasing today to promote productivity among smallholder farmers, reduce rural poverty and address national food insecurity.

The Chief of Party for the Food for Future Agricultural Extension and Advisory Services Activity, Dr. Ben Odoemena, urged stakeholders to sustain and replicate the success of the project in other states in Nigeria to ensure its long-term impact.

Jean Pierre Rousseau, Project Director for USAID’s “Feed The Future” initiative, highlighted the challenge of providing adequate extension services in Nigeria, where one extension agent serves 10,000 farmers.

He pointed to Nigeria’s entrepreneurial spirit as a vital factor in addressing this issue, noting that over 311 MSMEs have been mobilized to deliver innovative solutions to smallholder farmers.

On his part, the Executive Director of the National Agriculture Extension and Research, Emmanuel Ikani, underscored the need for market-led, demand-driven extension services. He also addressed the stigma associated with farming among the youth, emphasizing the role of mechanization and improved market access in making agriculture more attractive.