By Mary Izuaka

 

The federal government on Monday inaugurated the Coalition of Farmers Associations for Food Security in Nigeria (COA-FARMERS).

The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari, who inaugurated the coalition on behalf of President Bola Tinubu in Abuja, said agriculture grew by 4.39 per cent in the second quarter of 2026, its best performance since 2021.

The Head of the Department of Information at the Ministry, Ezeaja Ikemefuna, disclosed this in a statement on Monday.

According to the statement, Mr Kyari said the growth belongs first to farmers who responded to President Tinubu’s declaration of a state of emergency on food security shortly after assuming office.

“A country cannot secure its food future if the people who produce its food are heard only after decisions have been made,” the minister said.

He noted that the president renamed the ministry as the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security to focus on what reaches the Nigerian table.

Mr Kyari said COA-FARMERS must become more than an umbrella of associations. Its value, he added, should lie in its ability to organise farmers around solutions, strengthen the flow of credible information from the field, and help the ministry see where the president’s programmes are working, where constraints remain and where adjustment is required.

He said exchange now matters beyond Nigeria’s borders. With Nigeria unanimously elected in February to chair the Governing Council of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the UN agency for smallholder farmers, the coalition will help give Nigeria’s voice substance.

“When Nigeria speaks in that forum, it must speak with the authority of its own farmers, and this coalition will help give that voice its substance,” Mr Kyari said.

Explaining the coalition’s logo, which features crops, livestock, fisheries and joined hands, the minister said it captures cooperation and the breadth of Nigerian agriculture, in line with the president’s creation of dedicated ministries for livestock and the blue economy.

He underscored the role of women farmers, saying no serious conversation about food security can leave them at the margins. He said women must help shape decisions and influence programmes, noting their active role across production, processing, aggregation and marketing.

“Food security will not be secured by speaking for women farmers. It will be strengthened by ensuring that women farmers have the space, the tools and the opportunity to organise, invest, produce and grow,” he said.

He charged the coalition to be a partner that can tell the ministry the truth – to show where programmes reach farmers and help extend their reach, and where they fall short, identify the obstacle.

“Mr President expects this ministry to deliver results that farmers can feel: better access to inputs, stronger production, higher productivity, better markets and more secure livelihoods,” he said.

Mr Kyari recalled President Tinubu’s promise at his inauguration that “food would become more abundant and less costly, and farmers would earn more,” noting that from today, COA-FARMERS shares in the work of keeping that promise.

He urged the leadership to protect the credibility of the platform, keep farmers at the centre of its work, remain constructive in its engagement with the government, and let its strength be demonstrated by results for Nigerian farmers.

The minister also revealed that the president recently appointed him as the Director of the Presidential Campaign Council for Agro-Allied Commodities Mobilisation, while the Minister of State will serve as Deputy Director.

In his remarks, the Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security, Aliyu Abdullahi, acknowledged the support of COA-FARMERS for the re-election bid of the president.

He urged them to work towards the goal collectively by showcasing the achievements of President Tinubu in agriculture and other sectors of the economy.

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In his address, the National President of COA-FARMERS, Emmanuel Anoh, saluted the efforts of Nigerian farmers across grains, roots and tubers, livestock, fisheries, horticulture, cash crops and agro-allied services.

He disclosed that the coalition is a unified apex platform of 99 farmer associations and commodity organisations representing producers, aggregators, processors and marketers across the value chain.

Mr Anoh described the minister as a “Farmer’s Champion” and commended interventions including stabilisation of food prices, distribution of fertiliser, the tractor mechanisation programme, the National Agricultural Growth Scheme – Agro-Pocket and Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones.

He appealed for the adoption of a direct-to-farm model in the distribution of interventions and for a quarterly stakeholder dialogue with the ministry, and requested the minister’s patronage and support for a formal presentation of the coalition to President Tinubu.

The highlight of the occasion was the inauguration of the coalition, a unified apex platform of commodity associations, farmers and agribusiness organisations, registered farmers’ associations and cooperative societies in Nigeria.