The Vice President of Nigeria, Senator Kashim Shettima, Monday, championed and promoted Nigeria's Innovative Food Financing Model at a high-level event at the UN Food Systems Summit in Rome, Italy.
Shettima made it known that agricultural hubs will be created across Nigeria through the Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones Programmes, SAPZ, and Value Chain Development Programme, VCDP to boost food production and value-added processing as contained in a statement signed by the Knowledge Management and Communications Advisor, IFAD VCDP Nigeria, Vera Onyeaka-Onyilo.
He stated this while chairing a panel at the Nigeria High-Level Event on Innovative Finance for Food Systems Transformation - Case study of Nigeria's Value Chain Development Programme (VCDP) and Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones Programs (SAPZ).
According to him, in line with the Nigeria Food Systems Transformation Pathways, the Federal Government will continue to advance the mobilization of innovative financing to address the key challenges to food systems priorities.
Shettima pointed out that as a result of the existing huge food finance gap in Nigeria, at regional and global levels, he said Nigeria is appealing and wants stakeholders' formal sectors to be mobilized at both national and international levels to create and build win-win partnerships.
He also maintained that these partnerships would galvanize transformative and substantial funding towards the achievement of what he described as sustainable, resilient, and inclusive food systems.
Meanwhile, the President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, IFAD, Mr Alvaro Lario, pointed out that governments and development agencies need to be in the lead with their own investments.
"To stimulate private investment, we need governments and development agencies to lead the way with their own investments.
"We must also ensure these investments help smallholder farmers increase their incomes, improve their access to markets, increase their production, build their resilience", Lario said.
The Vice-President of OLAM and Panelist at the event, Mr Reji George whose organisation is a private partner of IFAD-supported VCDP, explained the partnership agreement between VCDP and Olam under the Commodity Alliance Forum, CAF, which the partnership agreement provides smallholder rice farmers with access to a reliable and profitable market for their produce.
According to George, the opportunity also stimulates productive investments at the farm level.
Meanwhile, the partnership draws commitments from Olam, IFAD, the Nigerian government and the farmers individually and collectively.
In another comment, the Vice President of Commodity Alliance Forum, CAF, Mrs Ejim Lovelyn, who represented farmers spoke on how CAF shows how the Public/Private/Producers Partnership (4Ps) of the VCDP is achievable and distinctive.
Lovely further stated that with VCDP in place, smallholder farmers are playing their role effectively in terms of financing priority actions for food system transformation including benefits they enjoy from value chain financing provided by the private sector while increasing also their sales, profit and productivity.
Two case studies were presented with a high-level panel discussion to showcase two innovative finance models aimed to transform Nigeria's food system.
First, the US$ 521.00 million Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones (SAPZ) programme, launched in 2022, with the aim to promote inclusive agribusiness development and rural transformation by establishing agricultural-specific economic zones.
The programme targets 100,000 direct beneficiaries (90% smallholders; 10% small processors/ traders/service providers) Second, the Value Chain Development Programme (VCDP), launched in 2016, US$ 329.00 million programme of the Government of Nigeria with funding from IFAD.
The programme aims to improve the income and food security of poor rural households engaged in the production, processing and marketing of rice and cassava on a sustainable basis.
The programme targets 135,000 direct beneficiaries comprising 121,000 smallholder farmers and 14,000 processors/ marketers.
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Meanwhile, recommendations were made: Governments should develop a vision with the right policies, strategies and enabling environment to stimulate innovative food investments by all actors to ensure an accelerated and coordinated implementation of the National Pathways for Food System Transformation.
The private sector should scale up its innovative investments to support countries' priorities on food systems. All actors (government, private sector, farmers organizations, international development partners) must integrate social, environmental and health costs in their funding decisions.
International development partners should foster Public-Private-Producer Partnerships 4Ps to build an ambitious shared vision of a Food Finance Architecture that mobilises large-scale capital for more sustainable food systems.
Support smallholder farmers to have better access to agro-inputs, training, technology, innovative finance, climate resilience, and fair and remunerative markets to boost their contribution to sustainable food systems.
