Smart Consults

Today, at Kaduna Agricultural Development Agency- KADA I have the privilege together with the RISE (Resilient and Inclusive Agri-food Systems Empowering Women and Youth in Nigeria) team to engage with the DG of KADA to introduce the RISE project to the agency and discuss the objectives of the project. This sort of engagement give us the opportunity to take in valuable feedback from the stakeholders of the project that will help in smooth implementation of the RISE project.

The project will reach approximately 50,000 people, including 12,500 individual smallholder farmers and their families. It aims to strengthen 450 women- and youth-led MSMEs and 250 farmer cooperatives by providing matching grants, innovation funds, and smart incentives within the four targeted agricultural value chains ( Groundnut, Rice, Maize, and Soybean).

Today in Kaduna, Nigeria, I worked with my experienced IFDC team to validate the 2025 NPK data as part of the National Technical Working Group annual activity on NPK. We continue to see significant progress in the fertilizer subsector as Nigeria advances toward self-sufficiency.
This data-validation exercise enables the NTWG to thoroughly review, verify, and update the information collected over the year, ensuring accuracy and strengthening the foundation for informed decision-making.

See: https://africafertilizer.org/ for reliable data on fertilizer

Today at Fraser Suites, Abuja, I had the privilege of facilitating a capacity-building session for women leaders in agribusiness under the GIZ EU–VAC TARED Project.

During the session, I highlighted the principles of the 5C+ Leadership Model, explored the internal and external factors shaping women’s leadership identity, and provided participants with self-awareness and self-evaluation toolkits to help them assess their leadership journey and current growth stage.

Key Takeaways

A strong consensus among participants was that progress has been made in mainstreaming women within the agribusiness space—we are not where we used to be. However, the pace remains slow, and intentional, sustained efforts are required to accelerate women’s visibility and participation in leadership roles.

Another important reflection was that the conversation is not about women versus men, but about ensuring equity, fairness, and a level playing field where both women and men can lead effectively.

We also acknowledged that cultural norms remain deeply rooted in Nigeria’s leadership landscape. These subconscious social expectations continue to limit women’s participation and confidence in stepping into leadership spaces.

My Recommendation

I emphasized that women must recognize that their authentic strength lies in being competent, soft and assertive—a powerful combination that enriches leadership.

Today, in Ijebu East LGA of Ogun State, we continued the exercise to map farmers' organizations with the goal of identifying at least 6,300 farmers for the SAPZ program.

Today, as part of our Agriculture Expenditure and Institutional Reviews case study activities, my team had a session with the Honorable Commissioner, the permanent secretary, and Director of Veterinary Services of Ministry of Agriculture, Kaduna State, to discuss and probe into the activities of the state around policy development and implementation.The meeting was insightful, as we learned that Kaduna has developed a contract farming policy and a gender policy for agriculture, making it the first state in Nigeria to implement these policies. In addition to these achievements, Kaduna has also made significant strides in Public-Private Partnership (PPP) and value chain development.Furthermore, we made a quick stop at the Kaduna State Agricultural Development Agency to elucidate information about their activities around extension services delivery and policy implementation. The responses were also positive, although there is room for improvement.Furthermore, budgetary allocation has increased over 90% in the last three years (2023, 2024, and 2025), making Kaduna State meet the 10% budgetary allocation declared in 2003 and 2006 (Malabo Declaration).From our finding we can infer that the Kaduna State Ministry of Agriculture has a knowledgeable and efficient team with tangible results.

Thank you Kaduna Ministry of Agriculture for been a great host.

Today, I had the privilege of wrapping up a 5-day intensive and strategic brainstorming session with a group from the Consortium for the Resilience and Inclusive Agri-food Systems Empowering Women and Youth (RISE) in Nigeria project, scheduled to commence from 2025 until 2030. During the strategy sessions, we were able to review the Integrated Systems Market Analysis (IMSA) Report, Conflict Analysis Report, Baseline Report, Project Workplan, and Project Monitoring Framework Indicators. The targeted states include Kano, Kaduna, and Bauchi, and we hope to achieve a sustainable impact in the maize, rice, soybean, and groundnut value chain through:-
1. Enhance adoption of climate-smart agri-tech,
2. Enhance competitiveness, sustainability, and resilience, and
3. Improve the enabling environment for sustainable and inclusive agri-food systems.

In this project, among other roles, I will have the privilege to provide targeted business development services, technical assistance, and cooperative management services to the beneficiaries.

Thank you, Emeriad CMC, for the opportunity to work on this task.

Today, in Demsa, Adamawa State, I led my result-oriented team to another closeout activity with a group of 100 rural women entrepreneurs. The capacity-building exercise was co-funded by GIZ to strengthen the entrepreneurial skills, financial literacy, and market engagement of rural women. As a result of the training, a new cooperative society was formed by the women.

We also got feedback from men suggesting that their wives are becoming stingy because they have learned the importance of separating business money from personal money.

Thank you, Emeriad CMC.

In Numan, Adamawa, I had the opportunity to work with the outstanding team at Emeriad Capital Management & Consult Ltd. to deploy business development services training to rural women in various trade areas. The assignment was funded by GIZ and the European Union with the goal to strengthen the entrepreneurial skills, financial literacy, and market engagement of rural women. The feedback from the women was wonderful, as the trainees were armed with soft and technical skills that will help them to position themselves properly in business and scale up when opportunities arise.

The rural economy is crucial for achieving President Bola Ahmed Tinubu's goal of a 1 trillion dollar economy.

Sound investment decision are such that are made based on referencable longitudinal data, I had the opportunity to work with the team of AgNexus, to conduct a market research with the aim of understanding the Agro-input dealers market landscape in Abuja, Nigeria. This is Novel and upon implementation will help market players understand farmers' investment pattern and make data available for investment decision.

Somewhere in Dawakin-Tofa LGA, Kano supervising the mapping of Farmer Organizations for on-boarding into SAPZ database of tentative project beneficiaries.

Imagine a model in which an APEX Farmers Organizations can mobilize half a billion Naira in savings per annum if duly implemented.

Group Formation and Strengthening is very paramount to the sustenance of development initiatives in the agricultural value chain. It's a viable exit strategy that should be targeted during project initiation stages. Today we had the privilege of training enumerators as we start mapping and Formation of farmers organizations with 32, 880 database of farmers in Kano State, Nigeria.

Somewhere in Kebbi state, evaluating the potential that abound in the rice value chain, given the perennial demand-supply gap of over 5 million MT annually. The exercise brought to the fore that the government and private investors are doing a lot to improve the productivity. However, it's my recommendation that more effort and programs be targeted at value addition and industrialization of the agribusiness industry. More funds should be vire to encourage processing, particularly in the rice subsector as this constitutes a huge portion of Nigeria Food Import bill.