By FeliciA Imohimi

The Federal Government and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)-Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones (SAPZ) programme have pledged to make all states across the country agro-industrial hubs by 2026.

Dr Dede Ekoue, Country Director, IFAD, made the pledge at the 1st joint Federal Government/IFAD Supervision Mission Wrap-Up of SAPZ on Friday in Abuja.

Ekoue said the gesture would be achieved through the implementation of the project in all states of the federation.

She said that the accelerated pilot intervention in Kano had proven to be highly effective model, laying strong foundation for the project’s future success and ensuring tangible benefits were reaching the targeted rural smallholder farmers.

The country director said the project had so far reached 1000 beneficiaries in Kano out of the 7,398 profiled farmers between September 2024 and September 2025 in the state.

She described the progress achieved so far at the early phase as a strong indicator of its potential to achieve its goal in upcoming years.

“We have already reached over 1000 beneficiaries under the pilot project, which demonstrates our commitment to the targeting strategy and our goal of inclusivity.

“The project is on the right path to meeting the SAPZ’s gender and youth representative targets, with 44.5 per cent of the beneficiaries being female and 28.8 per cent youth.

“As we progresses, we are on track to meet the 50 per cent female and 40 per cent youth representation targets in the targeted areas of Kano and Ogun States.’’

Ekoue identified the target of reaching 24,000 beneficiaries across Ogun and Kano by 2025 as ambitious and achievable.

She called for concerted efforts of all stakeholders to accelerate the pace of implementation and prioritise scaling up successful intervention.

“We must continue to strengthen our partnerships; leverage new technologies and adapt quickly to the changing agricultural landscape,” she said.

Ekoue identified other achievements of the project as capacity building for farmer-based organisations, establishment of demonstration plots, partnerships with local institutions, strong collaboration with state and local government and private sector engagement.

She said the project has also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Commodity Alliance Federation.

According to her, the gesture is as an important step towards enhancing the livelihoods of farmers by opening new pathways to market opportunities.

Dr Kabir Yusuf, National Programme Coordinator, SAPZ, said the project’s overall development objective was to support the development of SAPZ in high food production areas to supply the domestic food market and create exportable surpluses.

According to him, it is also to capacitate smallholder farmers, small agro-processors and traders and community-based service providers including women and youth.

Yusuf said the programme was being piloted in Kano and subsequently, Ogun.

He said it would be implemented across the 36 states of the federation through the bye-in of the government.

“If the SAPZ project is implemented across all the state it will directly or indirectly create at least 500,000 jobs in each states outside the jobs that will spring up along the value chain.

“l am optimistic that as we have reach our pilot target group, we will rich our target in 2025 and the issue of food security will be history

“We will at that point develop infrastructure for our processing industry and by the end of 2026 we will have full fledge SAPZ and agro-Industrial development across the country,’’ he said.

Mr Musa Bukar, Director, Project Coordinating Unit, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (FMFS), said the supervision mission was to access the level of implementation of the project in Kano and identify key bottleneck.

“The mission is also to make recommendation on way forward to accelerate progress.

“SAPZ has successfully foster collaboration with key stakeholders including the Kano State ministry of agriculture, agro-pastoral development programme, among others.

“These efforts help assure that the project aligned with local needs and provides a strong foundation for the project’s successes and quality improvement,’’ he said.

Tabi Karikari, Chief Agro-Industrial Officer, African Development Bank (AfDB), who identified SAPZ as a game changer, said it was accelerated for its capacity to change any rural communities from zones of misery to becoming zones of prosperity. (NAN)( www.nannews.ng)

Edited by Chijioke Okoronkwo