By Kayode Akinmade
With help for 10,000 farmers, new mechanisation tools, digital know-how and investments in agro-processing, Governor Dapo Abiodun is pursuing a multi-pronged technique to spice up meals manufacturing, scale back post-harvest losses and enhance farmers’ livelihoods.
As Nigeria grapples with meals affordability and rising agricultural manufacturing prices, Ogun State, beneath Governor Dapo Abiodun, is strengthening efforts to enhance meals safety by way of focused help for farmers, mechanisation, digital innovation and investments throughout the agricultural worth chain.
The newest intervention, unveiled on the 2026 World Food Day celebration in Abeokuta, offers a transparent indication of this method. It targets 10,000 rice and cassava farmers with subsidised farm inputs, alongside the distribution of 10 tractors, different agricultural tools and 1,200 Android telephones geared up with purposes for climate info, market costs and finest agricultural practices.
The initiative displays an understanding that enhancing meals safety requires greater than rising the amount of crops planted. It additionally calls for reasonably priced inputs, well timed info, environment friendly manufacturing programs, higher storage, processing services and dependable entry to markets.
For farmers, the price of fertilisers, herbicides, improved planting supplies and equipment can decide whether or not a farming season produces a revenue or deepens current monetary difficulties. By intervening in these areas, the Ogun State Government is in search of to cut back a few of the limitations confronting farmers whereas enhancing their capability to reply to market calls for.
At the World Food Day occasion, themed “Innovate Today, Nourish Tomorrow,” Abiodun introduced a bundle of agricultural inputs for two,000 rice farmers and eight,000 cassava farmers.
Under the association, every beneficiary will obtain two baggage of fertiliser and one bag of urea. Cassava farmers may also obtain 25 bundles of cassava stems every, whereas the federal government will present 10 litres of herbicides to every beneficiary cassava farmer and three litres to every beneficiary rice farmer.
According to the state authorities, beneficiaries will contribute 30 per cent of the price of the inputs, relying on the class, whereas the federal government will cowl the remaining 70 per cent by way of its partnership with the International Fund for Agricultural Development.
The cost-sharing association is meant to make important farm inputs extra accessible whereas supporting farmers to extend manufacturing. Its final affect will depend upon the well timed distribution of the inputs, efficient monitoring and the extent to which the intervention interprets into greater yields and higher incomes.
For a state with appreciable agricultural potential and proximity to main client markets, such interventions carry financial significance past the farm. Increased manufacturing can help meals processing, transportation, wholesale and retail commerce, whereas creating employment alternatives for individuals who will not be straight engaged in cultivation.
Mechanisation and the Productivity Challenge
One of the longstanding challenges of Nigerian agriculture is the restricted entry of smallholder farmers to fashionable tools. Dependence on handbook labour can prohibit the dimensions of cultivated land, delay planting and harvesting, and enhance manufacturing prices.
The distribution of 10 tractors and different agricultural tools to farm settlements and farmers’ associations is a part of Ogun State’s response to this problem.
Abiodun disclosed that his administration had additionally procured 39 tractors, 4 self-propelled harvesters and different agricultural tools to help mechanisation throughout the sector.
The significance of mechanisation lies not merely within the variety of machines acquired however within the extra land farmers can domesticate, the time saved throughout crucial farming operations and the discount in losses attributable to delays in planting and harvesting.
When appropriately deployed and maintained, tractors and harvesters will help farmers enhance operational effectivity and enhance manufacturing. Shared entry by way of farm settlements and farmers’ associations also can lengthen the advantages of mechanisation to farmers who can not afford to buy tools individually.
For these investments to ship sustainable outcomes, nonetheless, preparations for upkeep, spare components, gasoline, operator coaching and equitable entry can be important.
The goal is to determine a system by which agricultural equipment stays productive, serves a broad base of farmers and contributes to sustained enhancements in output.
Digital Technology Comes to the Farm
Another notable function of the intervention is the distribution of 1,200 Android telephones loaded with purposes offering climate info, market costs and steerage on good agricultural practices.
The initiative recognises the rising function of knowledge in fashionable agriculture.
Weather info will help farmers make higher selections about planting and different farm operations, whereas market-price information can enhance their understanding of the place and when to promote their produce. Access to agricultural info also can assist farmers undertake improved practices and reply extra successfully to altering circumstances.
For farmers working in an more and more unpredictable surroundings, well timed info can affect each productiveness and profitability.
The digital initiative is linked to the Ogun State Farmer Information Management System, launched in April 2023 to help agricultural planning and focused interventions.
Abiodun disclosed that greater than 160,000 farmers and agricultural value-chain actors had been captured on the platform.
The database offers a basis for figuring out farmers, understanding their wants and enhancing the supply of presidency help. It also can assist the state develop extra evidence-based agricultural insurance policies, supplied the data is repeatedly up to date and successfully used.
The problem forward is to make sure that the know-how reaches farmers who want it, that beneficiaries can use the purposes successfully and that the data supplied is dependable and related to native farming circumstances.
If these circumstances are met, digital know-how can turn out to be an necessary device for bridging info gaps between farmers, agricultural extension companies, markets and policymakers.
From Primary Production to Agro-Industrial Devt
Beyond the quick provision of farm inputs and tools, the Abiodun administration has recognized agro-processing as an necessary element of its agricultural transformation agenda.
The governor disclosed that 28 agricultural initiatives had been accomplished within the previous two years throughout crop manufacturing, aquaculture and poultry.
The initiatives embody photo voltaic dryers, warehouses, cassava processing centres and a poultry processing plant at Ajegunle Farm Settlement in Odeda Local Government Area.
According to the governor, the poultry facility has the capability to course of 5,000 birds each day, equal to roughly 1.3 million birds yearly.
Such services are necessary as a result of agricultural manufacturing alone doesn’t assure improved incomes for farmers. Where storage and processing infrastructure are insufficient, produce can deteriorate earlier than reaching customers, whereas farmers could also be compelled to promote shortly at unfavourable costs.
Processing services can create extra markets for agricultural produce, scale back avoidable losses and help the event of companies concerned in packaging, distribution and meals manufacturing.
Cassava processing, as an illustration, can create alternatives past the sale of contemporary roots, whereas poultry processing can enhance the dealing with and distribution of poultry merchandise.
Warehouses and photo voltaic dryers will help protect produce, scale back spoilage and provides farmers larger flexibility in deciding when to promote.
The broader financial goal is to retain extra worth inside Ogun State by encouraging agricultural produce to be processed domestically slightly than offered completely in its uncooked type.
This method additionally gives alternatives for industrial funding, particularly when farmers can provide processors with constant portions and high quality of produce.
For Ogun, whose location offers entry to main markets, the event of an built-in agricultural worth chain might strengthen the connection between farming, manufacturing, logistics and commerce.
OGSTEP and the Market Connection
The Ogun State Economic Transformation Project (OGSTEP) is one other element of the administration’s agricultural growth efforts.
Abiodun mentioned agribusiness corporations beneath the programme had bought greater than 283,000 tonnes of agricultural produce, whereas farmers organised into clusters had obtained capacity-building help and connections to off-takers.
The emphasis on market entry addresses one of many central difficulties confronting farmers: producing crops with out having reliable consumers or enough details about market circumstances.
Connections between farmers and off-takers will help create extra predictable demand, whereas organised clusters can enhance coordination, facilitate entry to coaching and inputs, and make it simpler for consumers to supply produce in industrial portions.
Where these relationships are sustained, farmers could also be higher positioned to plan manufacturing, negotiate gross sales and scale back the uncertainty related to discovering markets after harvest.
The reported purchases beneath OGSTEP additionally level to the significance of linking agricultural manufacturing with industrial demand.
The subsequent stage of the method is to deepen these connections, broaden participation and be sure that the advantages of business agriculture attain smallholder farmers in addition to bigger agribusinesses.
Investing within the Next Generation
Agriculture’s capability to create employment is especially necessary in a rustic with a big inhabitants of younger individuals in search of sustainable sources of revenue.
Yet attracting younger Nigerians to farming requires greater than encouraging them to domesticate the land. It requires demonstrating that agriculture can help viable companies by way of know-how, fashionable manufacturing strategies, entry to finance and reliable markets.
Abiodun disclosed that his administration had partnered with Soilless Farm Lab to coach greater than 200 younger individuals in soilless farming and supply start-up help to beneficiaries.
Soilless farming gives an alternate manufacturing technique that can be utilized in applicable settings to domesticate chosen crops with out typical soil-based cultivation. Depending on the crop, system and working prices, it may create alternatives for intensive manufacturing and specialised agribusiness.
The coaching initiative represents an effort to reveal younger individuals to various farming strategies and equip them with abilities that may help enterprise growth.
For such programmes to generate lasting outcomes, coaching have to be accompanied by entry to productive assets, enterprise steerage, financing and markets. The long-term measure of success would be the variety of viable enterprises established, the roles created and the extent to which beneficiaries can maintain their operations.
Women additionally stay central to agricultural manufacturing, processing and meals distribution. Improving their entry to land, inputs, know-how, finance and markets can strengthen family incomes and broaden participation within the agricultural economic system.
These issues underline the necessity for agricultural programmes to mix manufacturing help with enterprise growth and inclusive financial alternatives.
Land, Investment and Agricultural Expansion
Access to appropriate land is one other issue that may decide the size and effectivity of agricultural funding.
The governor mentioned his administration established the Ogun State Agricultural Land Management Agency to facilitate entry to land and promote a accountable and inclusive framework for land-intensive agricultural funding.
The company is meant to handle land-access challenges whereas encouraging funding in industrial agriculture.
At his World Food Day deal with, Professor Kolawole Adebayo, a former Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, famous that Ogun State had roughly 1.2 million hectares of arable land, representing important potential for agricultural manufacturing and agro-industrial growth.
He argued that the state wanted forward-looking insurance policies and sustained funding in innovation to understand this potential.
The availability of arable land, nonetheless, is just one a part of the equation. Agricultural growth additionally requires reliable water provides, appropriate roads, storage services, entry to finance, applicable know-how and a functioning market system.
Adebayo referred to as for an built-in transport community linking rail, street, water and air transport to enhance the motion of agricultural produce and protect its high quality earlier than it reaches customers.
The proposal displays a broader problem in meals distribution: even when farmers obtain good harvests, poor transportation and insufficient storage can enhance prices and scale back the amount of meals that reaches the market in good situation.
Better connectivity between farms, processing centres, warehouses and concrete markets might subsequently complement investments in manufacturing.
For Ogun State, the chance lies in linking its agricultural assets with its industrial base, transport connections and proximity to giant client markets.
Building a More Resilient Food System
The administration’s agricultural initiatives are additionally a part of a wider effort to strengthen the state’s contribution to nationwide meals safety.
Abiodun counseled President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for efforts to strengthen native fertiliser manufacturing and enhance farmers’ entry to agricultural inputs. He additionally acknowledged the First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, for initiatives supporting girls farmers.
The governor mentioned Ogun would proceed to enrich federal agricultural interventions by way of focused help for farmers, accountable funding and stronger market linkages.
Speaking on the World Food Day celebration, the Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Security, Bolu Owotomo, careworn that entry to nutritious and reasonably priced meals was basic to human dignity and sustainable growth.
He referred to as for larger funding in girls and younger individuals by way of improved entry to land, finance, coaching, know-how and worthwhile agricultural alternatives. He additionally disclosed that greater than 12,000 farmers had benefited from coaching and agricultural inputs beneath OGSTEP.
The National Programme Coordinator of the Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones Programme, Dr Kabiru Yusuf, represented by the National Agriculture Expert, Dr Louis Enaberue, counseled the state authorities for its help for agriculture and urged beneficiaries to make efficient use of the tools and inputs supplied.
Similarly, the South-West Coordinator of the Commodity Farmers Association of Nigeria, Prince Segun Dasaolu, acknowledged the state’s interventions, whereas Rotimi Sogunle, talking on behalf of farm settlers, thanked the governor for supporting farming communities.
Their remarks highlighted the significance of sustained collaboration amongst authorities, farmers, growth companions, analysis establishments and personal buyers.
The Road Ahead
Ogun State’s agricultural technique combines quick help for farmers with investments meant to strengthen the broader agricultural economic system.
The provision of subsidised inputs will help deal with manufacturing prices. Mechanisation can enhance operational effectivity, whereas digital instruments can broaden entry to info. Processing and storage services can create extra markets, scale back post-harvest losses and help worth addition. Training and entry to land also can open alternatives for brand spanking new agricultural enterprises.
The final check, nonetheless, would be the outcomes these interventions produce over time.
Higher yields, decrease manufacturing prices, improved farmers’ incomes, lowered post-harvest losses, larger non-public funding and elevated availability of reasonably priced meals will present extra concrete measures of progress than the variety of initiatives launched or tools distributed.
Effective implementation, clear beneficiary choice, common monitoring and correct upkeep of public agricultural property can be crucial to sustaining the positive aspects.
Equally necessary is the necessity to make sure that smallholder farmers, who represent a major a part of the agricultural sector, can entry the alternatives created by authorities programmes and personal funding.
The 2026 World Food Day intervention locations these points in focus. By combining help for 10,000 rice and cassava farmers with mechanisation, digital know-how and investments throughout the agricultural worth chain, the Ogun State Government is in search of to handle a number of constraints on meals manufacturing concurrently.
Whether these efforts translate into lasting enhancements in meals safety will depend upon their implementation, attain and measurable affect on the individuals who produce and eat meals.
For Ogun State, the problem is to show agricultural potential into sustained productiveness, worthwhile enterprises and a extra resilient meals system—one by which farmers earn higher incomes, companies discover alternatives to develop and customers have improved entry to nutritious and reasonably priced meals.
*Hon. Akinmade, a particular adviser to Governor Abiodun, writes from Abeokuta
