
Federal Government’s commitment to boosting agricultural productivity through support for smallholder farmers.
Federal Government’s commitment to boosting agricultural productivity through support for smallholder farmers.
In a bold move to strengthen food security and support farmers across the state, the Sokoto State Government has spent N5.3bn on the joint procurement of 105,800 bags of assorted fertilisers for the 2025 cropping season.
Ahmed Aliyu, Governor made the announcement on Wednesday at the official flag-off of subsidised fertiliser and agro-chemical sales held in Gwadabawa Local Government Area. The procurement was carried out in partnership with the 23 local government councils and includes NPK 20:10:10 and Urea fertilisers, which will be sold to farmers at a 40% subsidised rate NPK at N28,800 per bag and Urea (Indorama) at N29,800.
Aliyu also revealed that the government had procured 12,800 bags of improved seeds including Millet Super Sosat, Maize Hybrid, Cowpea, Sorghum, and Rice Faro 44, at a cost of N60mn, alongside herbicides and insecticides valued at N36.65mn.
He emphasised that the initiative aims to ensure timely access to quality inputs, improve productivity, and drive the transition toward mechanised farming in the state. As part of broader interventions, the governor disclosed that a contract worth N22.1bn has been awarded for the supply of 250 units of Massey Ferguson MF-375 tractors, while plans are underway to procure tiller machines to support smallholder farmers.
To boost year-round cultivation, Aliyu also announced the award of contracts for the rehabilitation of Lugu Dam and Kware irrigation facilities.While addressing farmers, he warned against the diversion of subsidised inputs and directed security agencies to ensure strict monitoring and enforcement.
He explained that the state had adopted a subsidised sales model instead of free distribution to avoid past abuses and guarantee that support reaches genuine farmers. “This model guarantees that support reaches those working on the farms,” Aliyu stated.
Present at the event were Chiso Dattijo, former deputy governor and Chairman of the Fertiliser Sales Committee; Muhammad Alkali, Commissioner for Agriculture; and Ibrahim Adare, Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs. The Sultan of Sokoto was represented by Dr Jabir Kilgori.
Also in attendance were prominent political and traditional figures including Senator Aliyu Wamakko, Speaker of the House of Assembly Tukur Bodinga, APC State Chairman Isa Achida, lawmakers, and other top government officials.
Indaba presents a vital opportunity to unite expertise and resources to effectively eradicate this devastating disease.
"The Indaba will convene a range of multidisciplinary specialists to develop a coordinated and comprehensive approach to controlling and ultimately eradicating foot and mouth disease," the department said in a statement.
The key areas of discussion was strengthening biosecurity measures at farm level, enhancing vaccination programmes, and reinforcing animal movement controls.
The Department of agriculture, in collaboration with the Agricultural Research Council, emphasised its committed to identifying and implementing sustainable solutions to FMD.
The department added that the Indaba signifies a crucial advancement in the ongoing efforts to combat the disease."By cultivating strong partnerships between government entities, academic institutions and industry leaders, the Department of Agriculture is committed to developing precise and effective measures that will eradicate the disease and safeguard the long-term sustainability of South Africa's agricultural sector."
In Ethiopia, UNIDO is supporting the development of four Integrated Agro- Industrial Parks (IAIPs).
An agro-industrial park is an agribusiness development corridor integrating value chain actors with high-quality infrastructure, utilities, logistics, and specialized facilities and services to create economies of scale for sustainable market-driven agribusiness development and rural transformation.
The primary objective of agro-parks is to create investment opportunities in agribusiness. The IAIPs in Ethiopia also aim to promote the value addition of agricultural production through processing, manufacturing and storage of food, feed, and biofuel products; drive technological change; and spur industrialization of the agribusiness sector by offering premises and supporting services that connect value chain enterprises.
The IAIPs combine infrastructure needs, such as roads, power, water, sewage and telecommunications, with features to support agrifood processing, for example, open production zones, controlled environment growing areas, precision farming, research facilities, rural hubs, agri-infrastructure, collection centres, primary processing hubs and agri-marketing infrastructure.
They also provide specialized infrastructure such as cold storage, quarantine facilities, quality control labs, certification centres and central processing units. The IAIPs are supported by a network of rural transformation centres in a 100-km radius, which function as hubs for agricultural processing, sorting, grading and other pre-processing activities, credit and finance services, input supply, and market information provision, thus further assisting producers and linking them to markets.
There are currently three operational IAIPs, with 114 investors committed to the initiative. To date, 25 factories are under establishment, and out of which nine agro-processing investments are fully operational. These efforts have generated over USD 48.1 million in export revenue and created 2 297 factory-level jobs. Smallholder farmers have been increasingly linked to the IAIPs as suppliers, with 131 605 farmers engaged in 2022, 103 800 in 2023, and 39 992 in Q2 of 2024.
The Ethiopian Government is encouraging investment through various incentives, such as low land prices, incometax exemptions, duty-free imports for capital goods, and financial support from domestic institutions.
These interventions not only increase income for farmers, but also generate employment in non-farm occupations as demand for goods and services rises (Yeboah and Flynn, 2021). Special attention to the role of women and youth in the agricultural sector is essential for improved employment outcomes and broader structural transformation (Yeboah and Flynn, 2021). With the proliferation of agro-processing practices, tertiary education and the service sector will play crucial roles, creating decent job opportunities and greater income. The international acceptance of these public and private services is inevitable to maintain the competitiveness of the agrifood sector.
A study conducted in Ethiopia, Ghana and Tunisia in 2022 showed that while employment in agrifood processing accounted for only 5 percent of total employment in the food economy, the ability of the food processing sector to generate employment opportunities as a percentage of its growth was high, which therefore presents significant opportunities for employment and income generation (Kubik et al., 2022).
By transforming raw agricultural products into higher-value goods, farmers and local businesses can capture more of the final market price. For instance, processing tomatoes into paste or turning milk into cheese significantly increases the income of producers (Begimkulov and Darr, 2023). This approach not only boosts the financial returns for farmers, but also creates diverse employment opportunities in rural areas, ranging from low-skilled labour to high-skilled technical and managerial positions.
Brazil, the country that has experienced the most rapid mechanization progress in Latin America, accelerated its transformation through price interventions that removed anti-agricultural biases, leading to increased investment in agrifood processing. The region’s focus on enhancing agricultural productivity resulted in higher incomes for farmers and the creation of numerous jobs in the food processing sector, contributing to broader economic development and poverty reduction (Daum, 2022).
New opportunities have emerged to increase participation of agrifood SMEs in food processing across Africa (Nakitto et al., 2024). Many of these opportunities are in domestic and regional markets as processors respond to growing demand (Nakitto et al., 2024). In Senegal, for example, demand for ready-to-eat millet has increased processing of millet (Badiane et al., 2022).