FG moves to end fragmentation in agric spending with 10-Year CAADP plan

The federal government has moved to end fragmentation in Nigeria’s agricultural spending by ordering a strict alignment of national and sub-national budgets with the National Agrifood System Strategy and Action Plan.

The directive, which seeks to domesticate the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Kampala Declaration (2026–2035), aims to halt overlapping investments, strengthen food sovereignty, and overhaul the country’s agricultural landscape.

Speaking at a national validation meeting in Abuja, Abubakar Kyari, Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, called on Ministries, Departments, Agencies (MDAs), and state governments to harmonise their annual budget cycles with the new ten-year blueprint.

“This validation meeting is essential; it is where the zero draft becomes stronger, more representative, and more actionable,” Kyari said. “We must ensure that every budget line, every program, and every intervention across government is aligned with the priorities of this Strategy.”

The new strategy builds upon the foundation of the Maputo 2003 and Malabo 2014 Declarations but pivots toward a more holistic, agrifood systems-based approach.

According to the minister, the policy framework was designed following extensive consultations across Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones to capture regional agricultural peculiarities.

“We wanted a plan that reflects the diversity of Nigeria’s agricultural landscape—from the livestock corridors of the North to the aquaculture belts of the South and from the cassava and yam zones of the East to the cocoa and oil palm plantations of the West,” Kyari added.

Nigeria’s agricultural sector has historically suffered from policy inconsistencies and uncoordinated spending between federal and state governments.

Kyari noted that the unified strategy will serve as a single framework to crowd in private capital while eliminating redundant public sector spending. He warned stakeholders against letting the blueprint become another document on the shelf, urging immediate operationalisation into the upcoming budget preparation processes.

Corroborating the minister, Marcus Olaniyi Ogunbiyi, Permanent Secretary at the ministry, emphasised that the strategy’s success rests heavily on sustained political will, robust monitoring, and institutional coordination.

Ogunbiyi noted that the strategy ties Nigeria’s local agricultural targets to the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), building on existing domestic initiatives in mechanisation, irrigation, and digitalised extension services.

“Our vision is to build an agrifood system that is productive, competitive, climate-smart, nutrition-sensitive, digitally enabled, market-oriented, and attractive to our young people,” Ogunbiyi said.

State governments have signalled readiness to adopt the federal directive. Representing the sub-nationals, Tola Fasseru, Osun State Commissioner for Agriculture, affirmed that states would work assiduously to replicate the Kampala Declaration’s framework to boost regional food production and internal revenue.

Fasseru specifically stressed that unlocking state-level growth would require a deliberate push to integrate more women and youth into commercial agrifood value chains.

The high-level validation pooled together state commissioners, international development partners, private sector executives, civil society organisations, and smallholder farmer groups to finalise the implementation roadmap.