Stakeholders collaborate to ensure food security through agricultural survey

By Abigael Joshua

The Agro-Climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscapes (ACReSAL) stakeholders gathered in Abuja on Thursday to promote food security nationwide through the 50×2030 survey initiative.

The thrust of the 50×2030 survey workshop, organised by the ACReSAL project in collaboration with the World Bank, focused on bridging agricultural data gaps and promoting evidence-informed decision-making.

Malam Balarabe Lawal, Minister of Environment, said the 50×2030 Initiative, led by the World Bank and FAO, aims to develop a fit-for-purpose, integrated, and financially sustainable agricultural survey programme.

He said the initiative will address the country’s data needs and foster a culture of data use for decision-making.

“50×2030 Initiative is a World Bank and FAO led global agriculture and climate statistics programme working in minimising data gap.

“And building national statistics systems and promoting evidence -informed agriculture in 50 low, lower-middle and middle-income countries around the world by the year 2030.

“In Nigeria, 50×2030 Initiative will work closely with the ACReSAL team, Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Agriculture, and the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in designing and implementing climate and agriculture focused survey programme in 36 states and FCT,” Lawal said.

He said the survey will incorporate an ACReSAL specific module to track progress and inform decisions.

“Data from the survey programme will inform national programming and policies in the agriculture sector and will inform climate change policies,” the Minister said.

Abdulhamid Umar, the National Project Coordinator of the ACReSAL Project said that indeed 50×2030 is an initiative of the World Bank for 50 countries in the world, who are members of the Bank.

“The initiative is to provide strength and capacity for those nations to enable them capture and gather reliable data from the agriculture site, in other words to ensure food security in the nation.The project will reach out to 36 states and the FCT,” Umar said.

Vinay Vutukuru, Social Development Leader, World Bank said that the project would address the impacts of climate change and food insecurity in Nigeria through data-smart agriculture.

Mr Koffy Dominque, FAO Representative in Nigeria and to ECOWAS said that 50×2030 Survey is aimed at bridging the agricultural data gap.

Dominque said it will also build strong national data systems that will produce and use high quality, timely agricultural survey data in Nigeria.

Dominque who was represented by Tofiq Braimah, said that FAO is committed to continue this effort to make sure adequate capacity is built at national level to sustain the production of agricultural statistics in Nigeria.

“This effort will be designed in such a way that National Bureau of Statistics and the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security will be in the driving seat of this data production to ensure that technical assistance provided in this 50×2030 initiative is sustained.

“With this collaboration, data on core agricultural variables as well as income and labour productivity, production methods and environment as well as use of machineries and equipment will be collected to regularly avail data on agriculture.

“Once again, FAO in collaboration with the World Bank team, is on board to assist the NBS and Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security in implementing the 50×2030 approach to have an annual agricultural survey in Nigeria for the next five years,” he said.

Sen. Aliyu Abdullahi, Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security said that the initiative would unlock the potentials of the agriculture sector and foster economic growth.

Abdullahi who was represented by Mr Oshadiya Olanipekun, Director, Lands and Climate Management Services in the ministry said that food security is imminent in the country through the use of data-smart agriculture.

Mr Yemi Adeniran, Statistician General of the Federation and Chief Executive Officer of the NBS said that the launch of the initiative marks the beginning of the significant partnership between ACReSAL and NBS.

Adeniran said this would facilitate the production of agriculture and climate related data in Nigeria till 2030.

“Data and evidence are very key to development solutions across the world. Data enables government and development partners to formulate policies to address development challenges,” he said.(NAN) (www.nannews.ng)

Edited by Razak Owolabi