Nine Northern States To Benefit From IFAD’s Value Chain Project

The eight years project is co-funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development, (IFAD) French Development Agency (ADF) and the Government of Nigeria and it aims to contribute sustainably to poverty reduction, enhanced nutrition and better resilience of rural and most vulnerable populations in Northern Nigeria.

The VCN project will provide value chain support from cultivation to market linkage for farmers in Borno, Bauchi, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Jigawa, Sokoko, Yobe, Zamfara.

The project which is expected to commence in August 2025, will directly impact the livelihood of an estimated 456,000 smallholder farmers and rural entrepreneurs, this includes 40% women, 60% youth, 10% People with disabilities (PWD) and 5% IDP returnees it will also indirectly support 3.1 million households.

An implementation validation workshop for a better in-depth understanding of the context in which the project will be implemented was held in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital.

The country director of IFAD Ms. Dede Ekoue said the complementary studies that were presented during the workshop will help fine tune the implementation strategies of the project.

“This validation workshop that is organised by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security in collaboration with IFAD, FAO and AFD aims to fast track the implementation of the value chain development programme in Northern Nigeria once the programme is signed. 

“The value chain North programme is important because it aims to support at least half a million smallholder farmers across nine states in North-East and North-West. So this activity will help us fine tune implementation strategies” she added.

The country Representative of the French Development Agency (AFD) Miss. Sally Ibrahim speaks on the expected impact of the project on livelihoods funding.

“So we have a program that is supposed to work on improving the conditions in the northern states, improving the income for the vulnerable population, especially the farmers in the rural areas, work on food and nutritional security, and that’s with the support that could be given to priority value chains that the project will finance”

“It’s an eight-year program in terms of implementation. AFD’s contribution to the program will be 75 million euros overall, and there is also the contribution from IFAD with the Nigerian government and the beneficiaries, so we can estimate around $185 million program for the nine participating states in the north” she disclosed.

The Director Projects Coordination Unit of the Ministry of Agriculture and food security, Mr. Bukar Musa said the project will support areas that were affected by banditry and insurgency in Northern Nigeria.

“You know, it is a fact that those areas are highly vulnerable and devastated as a result of insurgency, banditry, as well as the effect of the climate change that affected their production”