By Isa Abdul, Abuja

An MoU to provide agricultural support and opportunities for three million women through the Women Agro-Value Expansion (WAVE) Programme has been signed between the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development and the Bank of Agriculture (BOA).

Expanded women’s access to finance, mechanisation and opportunities across Nigeria’s agricultural value chain is what the deal aims to achieve.

The Minister, Hajiya Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, while speaking at the signing ceremony in Abuja on Tuesday, said the initiative aligned with President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda on food security and women’s economic empowerment.

She acknowledged women’s vital roles in agriculture but lacked adequate access to finance and resources needed to expand their businesses.

“This MoU with the Bank of Agriculture fills the critical financing gap confronting women in agriculture.

“Women are already farming, but many cannot scale because they lack access to finance and support.

“Access to finance will move women beyond smallholder farming into agro-entrepreneurship, creating agro-billionaires,” she said.

The minister hoped the WAVE Programme would enable women to participate across the agricultural value chain, including mechanised farming, input supply, processing and other agribusiness opportunities.

According to her, the programme will also provide education, digital tools and other support systems to improve women’s productivity and business success.

Sulaiman-Ibrahim said about 33,000 women had already indicated interest, while the Federal Government was targeting three million beneficiaries in the coming years.

She urged women across the country to embrace the initiative, saying their economic empowerment would strengthen families, communities and national development.

“Women are the solution. We must attract more women into agriculture and create opportunities that amplify the gains of this partnership,” she said.

Earlier, Managing Director of BOA, Mr Ayo Sotinrin, said the bank was committed to expanding agricultural financing for women, who accounted for a significant proportion of its reliable loan beneficiaries.

He said the bank would support women through input financing, mechanisation and other interventions designed to improve productivity and incomes.

Sotinrin said farmers would access improved seeds and other inputs at subsidised interest rates to boost yields.

“Instead of one tonne per hectare, farmers can harvest up to five tonnes through improved seeds and better support. Raising productivity remains Nigeria’s most pressing agricultural priority,” he said.

He added that women would also access tractors at subsidised rates, with repayment spread over three to five years.

“A woman can acquire a tractor, provide services to farmers and repay gradually until she owns it outright.

“This strengthens the business case for women in mechanisation,” he said.

Sotinrin said BOA would work with farmer aggregation companies and cooperatives to improve access to loans, ensure repayment and expand agricultural financing.

He expressed optimism that the programme would attract greater support from development partners and relevant government institutions.

Earlier, the ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Esuabana Nko Asanye, said the MoU would help move women from subsistence farming to commercial agriculture.

She said the partnership would provide access to mechanisation, input financing, improved seeds, demonstration farms and agricultural knowledge.

She added that beneficiaries would also become tractor owners, operators, seed producers, input suppliers and agribusiness managers.

“The programme begins modestly but progressively empowers women to become financially independent,” she said.

Asanye said the initiative would improve women’s incomes, strengthen household livelihoods and boost national food production.

By Comrade Tyokegh Benjamin ,
Economist & Policy Analyst
Date: July 24, 2026

The recent press release by the Benue Investment and Property Company Limited on restricting the movement of oranges out of Benue State deserves careful reconsideration. While the intention to drive industrialization and local value addition is both understandable and commendable, the proposed approach of channeling all farmers into a single-buyer arrangement may have unintended consequences for the very people it seeks to support.

It is important to recognize that farmers operate businesses and must retain the right to sell to the buyer offering the best price and terms. Farming involves significant risks — from weather and pests to market fluctuations — and farmers should be able to benefit when market prices are high. Therefore, preventing a farmer in Konshisha or Vandeikya from accessing buyers in Lagos, Kano, or even Niger Republic in order to supply the Bensono Concentrate Factory at a set price could inadvertently undermine their income. In effect, limiting their market options functions like a tax on those least able to bear it.

From an economic perspective, a single-buyer system, or monopsony, tends to weaken market dynamics. When demand is restricted, prices for the farmer naturally come under pressure. Without alternative buyers, the factory itself has little incentive to remain competitive on price or service. We should also consider the principle of comparative advantage. Benue’s strength lies in producing high-quality oranges, while other regions may be better positioned for processing. Blocking trade flows reduces efficiency across the value chain. If processors elsewhere can pay more, then the broader economy benefits when that trade is allowed. In addition, well-defined property rights and low transaction costs are essential for efficient markets. Erecting barriers does the opposite: it raises costs and reduces overall productivity.

Experience has shown that single-buyer models often create challenges over time. Without competition, there is less pressure to reward quality, so farmers may see little reason to invest in better produce. When state-owned enterprises face financial difficulties, payment delays to farmers also become more likely, and farmers with no other market will have no recourse. Competition, on the other hand, encourages buyers to offer better logistics, faster payments, and stronger prices. Without that discipline, efficiency tends to decline.

Another area that requires caution is the proposed involvement of security agencies in enforcing the directive. Using law enforcement to restrict a farmer’s movement of goods risks being perceived as limiting basic economic freedoms. This approach could strain relations between citizens and security institutions and may open avenues for corruption and extortion. It would be more productive to build trust than to compel compliance.

Industrialization should improve, not reduce, the standard of living of Benue people. A policy that lowers farm-gate prices works against that goal. The state cannot grow sustainably if its rural producers are worse off.

A more sustainable path would be to make Bensono the preferred buyer, not the only buyer.This can be achieved by offering premium prices for premium fruit, ensuring prompt cash payments, and supporting farmers with extension services and quality inputs at no cost. When farmers see clear benefits, they will choose to supply the factory voluntarily. That is how you build a resilient supply chain — through attraction, not restriction.

In light of the above, it is advisable for the Benue State Government to reconsider and withdraw the current directive. Rather than a “export or die” approach, I recommend a market-friendly strategy that positions Bensono to compete.

To our farmers: you remain the engine of Benue’s economy. You are encouraged to seek the best available market and negotiate terms that protect your livelihood. When BIPC and Bensono compete fairly in the open market, everyone wins — the factory, the farmer, and the state.

The prosperity of Benue’s farmers is not separate from the prosperity of Benue State. It is the foundation of it.

—-Sign mou for geospatial intelligence platform: crop monitoring, food security planning

By Son Tertsea

A Federal government delegation left Nigeria to Morocco on Wednesday to finalise a partnership deal for developing Nigeria’s first National Agro-Productivity System.

Senator Ibrahim Hadejia, Deputy Chief of Staff in the Office of the Vice President, is representing Vice President Kashim Shettima, who headed the delegation is Chair of the Presidential Food Systems Coordinating Unit.

Technical Assistant on Agriculture to the President (Office of the VP), Marion Moon, disclosed this in a statement she signed titled ‘Federal Government Launches Strategic Partnership to Strengthen Nigeria’s National Agricultural Intelligence Capability.’

Moon, the Executive Secretary of the PFSCU, revealed that the shared geospatial intelligence platform will give federal, state and local governments real-time data on crop location, land availability, yield projections and food security threats nationwide.

On Friday, July 17, 2026, according to Moon, Hadejia will sign the Memorandum of Understanding between the PFSCU, OCP Africa and Ground Truth Analytics.

Furthermore, the PFSCU scribe noted that the initiative marks a shift in how the country approached agricultural planning. In her words:

“The future of agriculture depends not only on improved inputs, but equally on stronger intelligence.

“Through this partnership, Nigeria is strengthening the institutional capabilities needed to plan better, respond faster, and make more informed decisions.

“It also reflects the Federal Government’s commitment to stronger coordination, recognising that sustainable development is accelerated when institutions work together around shared national priorities.”

The National Agro-Productivity System will be coordinated by the PFSCU under the National Agribusiness Policy Mechanism approved by the National Council on Agriculture and Food Security, she added.

Moon explained rudiments of the programme that “will provide Government with timely insights on agricultural land availability, crop location, crop performance, growth stages and expected yield outcomes, strengthening production planning, food security monitoring, agribusiness investment, early warning, and policy development.”

Phase One of the initiative will comprise a six-month pilot across three states, focusing on localisation of the technology through dataset calibration, ground-truthing and national capacity building.

She stressed that the pilot will establish the technical and institutional foundations needed before the system is rolled out nationwide:

“The visit will also provide an opportunity for the Nigerian delegation to undertake technical engagements and institutional visits that will strengthen national capacity and support implementation of the pilot,” she stated.

The Nigeria-Morocco partnership comes exactly three years after President Bola Tinubu on July 13, 2023, declared a state of emergency on food security.

Nigeria’s food security crisis deepened in 2023, when the removal of the petrol subsidy and the unification of the naira exchange window triggered a severe food inflation spiral that pushed the cost of staples beyond the reach of millions of households.

At its peak in early 2025, Nigeria’s food inflation exceeded 40 per cent year-on-year, among the highest in the world, with rice, maize, tomatoes and cooking oil recording the sharpest increases.

The World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organisation and UNICEF had all raised the alarm about the scale of food insecurity in the country, with UNICEF estimating that over 31.8 million children under five are acutely malnourished.

According to the UNICEF, it was the second highest burden in the world after India.

The crisis was further compounded by persistent insecurity in the North-West and North-Central farming belts, flooding and climate disruptions in the Middle Belt.

This also included structural weaknesses in the country’s agricultural data infrastructure that made it difficult for planners to accurately monitor production, anticipate shortfalls or target interventions.

In July 2024, Vice President Kashim Shettima inaugurated the Presidential Food Systems Coordinating Unit following a memo submitted to President Tinubu on the need for a dedicated food systems council to coordinate the administration’s response to the crisis.

The PFSCU was constituted under the Presidential Economic Coordinating Council, with Marion Moon, Technical Assistant to the President on Agriculture in the Office of the Vice President, serving as its Executive Secretary.

The unit says it has since driven a series of stakeholder engagements across all six geopolitical zones, convening state governors, agricultural ministry officials, the Nigeria Governors’ Forum and development partners around the National Agribusiness Policy Mechanism.

The NAPM was approved by the National Council on Agriculture and Food Security to align federal and state agricultural interventions around shared priorities.

In March 2026, the PFSCU deployed state coordinators across 13 pilot states to strengthen intelligence gathering on agricultural production patterns, following an earlier mass abandonment of rice cultivation by over 3,500 farmers who recorded cumulative losses estimated at N93bn.

Moon described the MoU as the PFSCU’s first major international technology partnership.

OCP Africa, the continental arm of Morocco’s OCP Group, is ranked the world’s largest phosphate exporter and a major fertiliser manufacturer operating across at least 30 African countries.

Meanwhile, Ground Truth Analytics, which specialises in satellite-based crop monitoring and geospatial agricultural data, has been deployed across several African markets to deliver field-level insights.

The delegation to Morocco comprises representatives from the Office of the Vice President, the PFSCU, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Justice, the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, the National Space Research and Development Agency and the National Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison Services, alongside technical experts supporting the initiative’s implementation.