1. Major investments backing Nigeria’s new drive for agriculture development; US$8bn
commitments from local and international investors for the provision of strategic, financial and
technical support

2. Restructuring the Ministry for wider reach- with the decentralization of Ministry of Agriculture
and rural development to 36 states and 6 regions, each state and region now has a director
heading a directorate for greater effectiveness.

3. National Farmers’ database created to allow for better identification of farmers. Until 2012,
Nigeria did not have a farmers database. Today, over 10 million farmers have registered with
their bio-data captured, allowing banks and government support to target them directly.

4. Supporting genuine farmers and agro-dealers- a direct link to government benefits has been
created through the Ministry of Agriculture’s technology enabled Growth Enhancement Scheme
(GES).
A fertilizer trader from Sokoto affirmed: “I used to be a critic of the Minister of Agriculture’s policy. But
today I am one of your strongest supporters. I now sell 3 lorry loads of fertilizers daily to farmers, who are
buying them with their e-wallets”
Over 6 million farmers access subsidized seeds and fertilizers via the GES e-wallet system,
helping them produce better yields.

5. Value chains for nine commodity crops continue to be developed to promote import
substitution, food security and local job creation.

6. Improved irrigation from less than 90,000 hectares, to over 200,000 hectares of irrigated area
under President Jonathan. Irrigation has also enabled 10 Northern states to partake in dry
season farming, producing up to 1.07 million metric tonnes of food.

7. Larger scale food processing plants revived or created; two large-scale cassava processing
plants are back in business with double their initial capacity. Investment facility for 100 large
scale rice mills of 2 million metric tonne capacity has been concluded, while 13 private sector
rice mills are already producing 240,000 MT of paddy

8. Commercial scale exports to China secured as a result of improved value chains. Dried cassava
chips demand from China for 2.2 million metric tonnes

9. Establishment of a N10 billion cassava bread fund by President Jonathan using funds obtained
from the imposition of new levies on wheat imports for promotion of 20%cassava bread

10. Enhanced Training for farmers; one example is the training of 4,650 rice farmers in the North
East, North Central, South East and North West geo-political zones on modern agronomic
practices in rice production