Fund-Yes Cooperative and Multi-Life Savers For The Less-Privileged People, two non-governmental organisations, have joined forces to launch the Food4All Initiative, a programme aimed at financing and supporting over 40 million smallholder farmers and food entrepreneurs.
The NGOs intend to finance the programme through fundraising targeting $6 billion between now and 2027.
The initiative’s “One-Family-One-Farmer Scheme” seeks to create a national grassroots network of smallholder farmers and food entrepreneurs, tackling Nigeria’s food security challenges while generating mass employment and wealth-building opportunities.
The Food4All fundraising campaign was launched in Lagos on July 27, 2024, with a target of raising $6 billion between 2024 and 2027.
Josephine Ojiambo, a diplomat, lent her support to the initiative, urging global donors and development partners to join forces with the NGOs.
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She said, “I urge global donors and development partners to give their full support to the Food4All Fundraising Campaign. Nigerians both home and across the diaspora must participate in this nation-building effort. You all must invest in agricultural and food value chains, both in the startups and business growth.”
Reverend Father Ejike Mbaka, a prominent Nigerian cleric, also threw his weight behind the initiative, emphasising the need for agricultural engagement to address unemployment and achieve food security.
“It is a known fact that a hungry man is an angry man and an angry man is a dangerous man. This is why we must not allow the ongoing acute hunger crisis to continue.”
Kennedy Iyere, the chief promoter of the Food4All Fundraising Campaign, highlighted the failure of past government agricultural programs due to corruption and lack of sincerity, stressing the need for a people-driven approach to address Nigeria’s food crisis.
“Our overall goal is to create, finance and build a national grassroots network of twenty million smallholder farmers and food entrepreneurs.
“Nigerians are the ones to drive their own programmes for agricultural development, food security, job creation, wealth building and economic self-emancipation, nobody will do it for them. It is for this purpose that myself and Reverend Father Mbaka formed the Food4All Initiative through our NGOs”, Iyere said.
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