The International Fund for Agricultural Development says the Federal Government and IFAD Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zone has expanded its outreach and strengthened engagement with local communities across the country. Speaking at the joint FG/IFAD second SAPZ Programme Supervision Mission on Wednesday in Abuja, the IFAD Country Director, Dede Ekoue, said a total of 41,204 smallholder farmers and value chain actors had been profiled under the programme.
Ekoue explained that 7,398 farmers were captured in Kano State during the 2024 pilot scheme, while 33,806 farmers and actors were profiled in the 2025 exercise covering Ogun and Kano States. She said the profiling exercise formed the backbone of implementation by ensuring accurate targeting, evidence-based planning and transparency in beneficiary support.
According to her, women make up 50 per cent of the profiled actors in Ogun State, while youths account for almost a quarter of participants in Kano State, which she described as an encouraging sign of the programme’s growing relevance to young agripreneurs. She added that 14,655 of the 33,806 actors profiled in 2025 had already benefited from input support, training and digital tools such as climate information services.
Ekoue said 15,664 individuals had been reached with training, nutrition packages and input packages since the programme began. This figure includes 9,353 men, 6,311 women and 3,955 youth. While this represents 15.8 per cent of the Life-of-Project target of 100,000 beneficiaries, she said implementation is accelerating. She described the meeting as a strategic moment for reflection, recalibration and renewed commitment to advancing Nigeria’s agricultural transformation agenda.
She emphasised that the SAPZ programme is a major collaboration between the Government of Nigeria, IFAD and participating states. According to her, the programme is supporting farmers while also building rural economies, creating agribusiness opportunities for youth, strengthening food security and boosting Nigeria’s resilience to global challenges. She said SAPZ is designed to transform Nigeria’s food systems by promoting enterprise development, agro-industrialisation, youth employment and inclusive rural prosperity.
Ekoue reiterated IFAD’s alignment with the Renewed Hope Agenda and national goals to build efficient, resilient and inclusive agricultural value chains. She added that support from the African Development Bank and the Islamic Development Bank has helped drive the programme’s progress.
She highlighted the Public–Private–Producer Partnerships anchored through IFAD’s 4P Model as a major pillar of SAPZ implementation. She said the programme has established the Multistakeholder Agribusiness Forum and facilitated the signing of 25 Memoranda of Understanding linking cassava, rice, tomato and groundnut producers to guaranteed offtakers and agro-processors. According to her, these partnerships bring together private sector players, financial institutions, government agencies and implementing partners to strengthen market access, reduce commercialisation risks and safeguard farmers’ income.
Ekoue noted that SAPZ is reinforcing its commitment to inclusion, gender equity and nutrition-sensitive agriculture. She said households, mostly women, have benefited from nutrition interventions including sensitisation sessions, hygiene training and food demonstrations, which help improve dietary diversity and family nutrition.
According to her, the supervision mission aims to validate progress, address emerging challenges, align state and federal priorities and finalise the operational steps needed to meet the 2025 performance targets.
The Director of the Department of Development Partners Project at the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, Mrs Iluromi Adebola, described the mission as a platform for an honest review of progress. Represented by Dr Ahmed Abubakar, she said the supervision meeting also focuses on resolving implementation bottlenecks and defining a coordinated plan to accelerate results across all SAPZ states.
Adebola identified SAPZ as a flagship government intervention that represents a collective ambition to move Nigeria from basic commodity production to competitive processing for both domestic and export markets. She said Nigeria’s agricultural sector had struggled for decades with limited processing capacity and weak market linkages.
According to her, the SAPZ model addresses these gaps by connecting producers to processors, logistics, storage and market systems, making it a central part of the Federal Government’s agricultural industrialisation agenda.
