The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) has signed two Technical Cooperation Programme (TCPs) with the Federal Government of Nigeria through the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) with the aim of strengthening sustainable and inclusive food and agriculture systems and food safety.
The signing ceremony was held on Tuesday in Abuja and was presided over by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr Ernest Umakhihe, and FAOs Representative in Nigeria and to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Mr Fred Kafeero.
Speaking at the occasion, Mr Kafeero said that FAO had secured funds for the implementation of three TCPs which are in line with the priorities of the Federal Government of Nigeria as outlined in the FAOs Country Programming Framework (CPF) for Nigeria 2018-2022.
Among the TCPs, is the one that will focus on the implementation of the Hand in Hand Initiative in Nigeria for sustainable and inclusive food and agriculture systems to build resilience and alleviate poverty, hunger and malnutrition.
“The Hand in Hand initiative in Nigeria aims to enhance the capacity of communities and rural institutions to take advantage of the unexploited opportunities effectively and sustainably but also address structural constraints and build the resilience of populations in territories under crisis,” he said.
On the other hand, the other Technical Cooperation Programme aims to provide technical support to aflatoxin management and mitigation in Nigeria. It is expected to help the Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to address food security and nutrition issues, support the national economic diversification drive, ensure food safety, and provide imports Substitution, among other benefits, Mr Kafeero added.
Explaining further on the TCPs, Assistant FAO Nigeria Representative, Abubakar Suleiman, said the hand in hand is an initiative that was developed by FAO but is a country-owned and Country led initiative that works across stakeholders to develop and identify Investment gaps and develop territorial approaches that will target specific value, chains specific commodities and specific entry points.
He said Nigeria through the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development expressed interest to join the hand-in-hand initiative, and for that if you have constituted a core team and a technical task team that is deployed to support Nigeria.
He also noted that this technical cooperation programme is a facility that will support in releasing constraint and bottlenecks to the implementation of hand-in-hand in Nigeria.
“Essentially, the hand in hand would work very closely with the participating Ministry. There are three main Ministries and other offices, the main Ministries include the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Ministry of Trade and Investment and Ministry of humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development.
“The hand in hand has a two-track approach that would focus on investment and impact Program implementation in defined crops and other Commodities that would be later developed and identified and prioritized in the course of the implementation.
“The second track is the humanitarian track that will fast-tracked resilience building a livelihood recovery program in particularly in territories that are facing different forms of Crisis,” he explained.
On aflatoxin mitigation, and Suleiman said the FAO in Nigeria received the request from the government of Nigeria through the minister to support technology in the mitigation effort of aflatoxin.
“As we all are aware aflatoxin is one of the major constraints that is responsible for the rejection of Nigerian products particularly cereals and other defined crops in EU Market,” he noted.
He said the Minister of Agriculture has set up an inter-ministerial technical working committee or working group to develop modalities and actions that will fast-track the reversal of this rejection by the international market.
“So specifically, this project would work very closely with the relevant technical departments in the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to operationalize the recommendations and other technical actions needed to improve the management of aflatoxin in those crops.
“So essentially, these are the two projects and the implementation would run for the biennium, which is 24 months normally beginning from June of to June 2023,” he added.
In his remarks, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, Mr Ernest Umakhihe, said: “We want to promote agriculture Nationally We commend FAO for their support the aflatoxin issue has been worrisome and the Technical Cooperation Programmes (TCP )will mitigate the effect and the hand in hand initiatives is a good program.”
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FAO, Nigeria sign agreements to enhance food safety, agriculture systems