By Stella Odueme
The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Sen. Abubakar Kyari, has called for the establishment of a unified national digital farmers register to eliminate duplication and ensure that government interventions reach genuine farmers.
Kyari made the call on Tuesday in Abuja while declaring open the National Strategic Dialogue on AGROW Subcomponent 2.2 National Implementation Strategy and Digital Agriculture Architecture.
He said Nigeria’s ability to feed its more than 200 million citizens depended largely on having accurate information on farmers, their locations and the crops they produce.
According to him, interventions such as fertiliser distribution, agricultural loans and other support programmes can only achieve their objectives when government has reliable records of beneficiaries.
Kyari said the proposed national register would build on existing initiatives, including the Federal Ministry’s collaboration with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to link farmers with their National Identification Numbers (NINs).
He also cited the ongoing review of farmers’ databases with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the Digital Villages project with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), as well as the Ministry’s existing data and mapping systems.
The minister urged state governments to take ownership of farmer enumeration, verification and regular updating of records.
He said the Federal Ministry, through the Federal Department of Agricultural Data and Analytics (FDADA) and the National Project Coordination Office (NPCO), would coordinate the process and enforce a single interoperable standard.
Kyari stressed the need for a unified agricultural information ecosystem based on common definitions, authorised data-sharing interfaces and clear governance arrangements that comply with Nigeria’s digital infrastructure and data protection laws.
He added that state financing under the AGROW programme would be tied to verified increases in the number of registered farms rather than simply higher registration figures.
The minister said the register must be inclusive, covering women and young farmers as well as farmers operating in areas without network coverage.
“We did not start talking about this today. Let this be the Dialogue that built Nigeria’s farmer registry,” Kyari said.
Also speaking, the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Abubakar Atiku Bagudu, said an authentic farmers’ registry would improve national planning and budgeting while strengthening coordination between the Federal Government and states on food and nutrition security.
The Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, said Nigeria’s agrifood transformation could not be achieved with fragmented agricultural data.
Abdullahi recalled that the country had missed several opportunities to develop a robust agricultural data system since the Agricultural Databank Project of the 1990s, identified as NIR/87/012.
He described agricultural data and analytics as productive infrastructure, saying they were as important to the sector as roads and electricity.
According to him, the dialogue was anchored on five national objectives: food security, food sovereignty, agro-industrial growth, export development and foreign exchange earnings, and environmental sustainability.
Abdullahi said traceable agricultural data would help prevent the rejection of Nigerian commodities, including hibiscus, sesame, cashew, ginger and cocoa, at international ports and enable the country to access premium markets.
He identified institutional rivalry and lethargy as major threats to agricultural transformation, warning that siloed management of agricultural data could lead to multiple registrations of farmers or leave some farmers completely unregistered.
The minister disclosed that the Federal Ministry had finalised the establishment of the Federal Department of Agricultural Data and Analytics (FDADA) as the sector’s data gatekeeper and institutional anchor.
He said Nigeria had historically invested heavily in collecting data but had not invested sufficiently in turning such data into knowledge and intelligence.
Abdullahi said the financing window under AGROW was now open and urged government agencies, state governments, development partners and the private sector to support the development of an interoperable national agricultural data system.
Earlier, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Dr. Marcus Olaniyi Ogunbiyi, said the AGROW Project offered an opportunity to boost agricultural productivity, develop value chains, create jobs and improve food and nutrition security.
Ogunbiyi said Component 2.2, which focuses on strengthening the digital agricultural ecosystem, was particularly important as agriculture was becoming increasingly data-driven.
He noted that reliable information on farmers, farms, soils, weather, markets and production systems was critical for effective planning, improved service delivery and informed decision-making.
The Permanent Secretary identified the development of a national digital farm and farmer registry as one of the key pillars of Component 2.2, saying it would help address the longstanding challenge of inadequate, outdated and non-interoperable information on farmers and farms.
The National Strategic Dialogue was convened by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, the Bank of Agriculture and the World Bank under the AGROW programme.
