Agriculture
By Sunday John
Lafia, Dec. 19, 2025 (NAN) – With the 2026 conclusion date of the Federal Government/International Fund for Agricultural Development–Value Chain Development Programme (FG/IFAD–VCDP) on the horizon, a coalition of policymakers, programme implementers, and farmers in Nasarawa State is making a decisive push to embed the programme’s transformative model into the state’s permanent agricultural framework. Their goal is to ensure the hard-won gains in productivity, climate resilience, and rural finance do not vanish with the programme’s external funding, but instead become the foundation for sustainable, state-led agricultural transformation.
The urgent call for institutionalisation was the central theme of a high-stakes stakeholders’ engagement held on Friday in Lafia. The meeting aimed to secure concrete policy, legislative, and budgetary backing to transition the VCDP from a time-bound project to an integral part of Nasarawa’s agricultural governance.
Dr. Eunice Adgidzi, the Nasarawa State Programme Coordinator of VCDP, framed the engagement as a critical step to “lock in” progress. “This is about moving from successful pilot interventions to a scalable, state-owned system,” she explained. She highlighted the alignment of this effort with broader state initiatives led by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Nasarawa Investment and Development Agency (NASIDA), noting that Governor Abdullahi Sule’s personal commitment to farming creates a unique political window for deep reform.
Adgidzi emphasised that the VCDP’s impact extends far beyond its core mandate of boosting rice and cassava value chains. “We have built a holistic ecosystem for rural development,” she stated, detailing interventions in climate-smart agriculture, access to rural finance, and a groundbreaking focus on gender inclusion through the Gender Action Learning Systems (GALS) methodology. GALS, she noted, is not just about women’s empowerment but about restructuring household decision-making and resource allocation to unlock greater economic potential for entire families.
Mr. Samson Jonah, the Knowledge Management and Communication Officer for VCDP in Nasarawa, presented a compelling scorecard to justify institutionalisation. He outlined the programme’s three-pillar model—Market Development, Smallholder Productivity Enhancement, and Programme Coordination—which is deliberately woven with cross-cutting themes of gender, youth, and environmental sustainability.
Jonah provided tangible examples often missing from high-level summaries: Climate Change efforts included not just training, but concrete actions like paying insurance premiums for over 2,000 farmers and promoting briquette production from farm waste. Nutrition interventions moved beyond sensitisation to establishing home gardens and demonstration plots for vitamin A-enriched crops. Financial Inclusion was driven by linking farmer groups to formal banking services and microcredit. These interconnected efforts, he argued, present a ready-made blueprint for a resilient state agricultural system.
The political commitment to adopt this blueprint was strongly voiced by state officials. Mr. Umar Tanko-Tunga, the Commissioner for Agriculture, gave a firm assurance: “The programme will not end in 2026. Governor Sule has directed us to internalise these lessons and build upon them.” He pledged the ministry’s readiness to translate stakeholder inputs into actionable policies.
Perhaps the most significant endorsement came from the legislative arm. Dr. Peter Akwe, Chairman of the Nasarawa State House of Assembly Committee on Agriculture, underscored the necessity of moving from project-based successes to law-based systems. “Institutionalisation through legislation is the only guarantee for sustainability beyond any single administration,” he asserted. He called for the VCDP model to be expanded to more local government areas and value chains, and promised the Assembly’s commitment to passing enabling laws that would protect and perpetuate the programme’s methodologies, such as its focus on climate adaptation and gender-inclusive household planning.
The consensus in Lafia is clear: the VCDP has demonstrated a viable path forward. The challenge now is for Nasarawa State to formally adopt that path, ensuring that the investments made and the models proven continue to drive agricultural growth, improve farmer livelihoods, and bolster food security for generations to come. (NAN)(www.nannews.ng)
SDJ/IU
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Edited by Isaac Ukpoju
