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Integrated Agriculture Activity presents draft work plan for second-year operation
November 11, 2020
The USAID-funded Feed-the-Future Nigeria Integrated Agriculture Activity (IAA) has outlined its proposed second-year work plan at a meeting with stakeholders in the Nigerian capital, Abuja. Virtual participants, along with 58 people on location, attended the seminar. 
Integrated Agriculture Activity presents draft work plan for its second-year operation

USAID Senior Agriculture Economist and the Activity’s Agreement Officer’s Representative

In his welcome address, IAA Chief of Party Prakash Kant Silwal highlighted some achievements from the Activity’s first year of implementation. In 2019, the Activity set up functional offices for the 47 staff in Adamawa and Borno states, digitally registered 62,666 farming households in the 12 implementing Local Government Areas (LGAs), and signed implementation agreements with public and private sector extension and market actors. Also, the Activity developed crop production guides and trained 52,734 smallholder farmers on improved agricultural production practices and new technologies for increased yields and income. 
Dr Charles Iyangbe and IAA Chief of Party Mr Prakash Kant Silwal.

Dr Charles Iyangbe and IAA Chief of Party Mr Prakash Kant Silwal.

As part of efforts to develop the seed system in Adamawa and Borno states, the Activity identified and, in collaboration with the National Agricultural Seed Council (NASC), trained 1,065 Community-Based Seed Producers (CBSP) in seed production and marketing techniques, and facilitated their linkage to foundation seeds from research institutes.  In facilitating access to finance for farmers, the Activity signed agreements with the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL)/ Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to provide singledigit interest rate credit to farmers through the Anchor Borrowers Program. Up to 25,472 smallholder farmers were considered to receive loans during the upcoming dry and wet farming seasonsIBorno State, loan applications for 91 cowpea farmers were approved and disbursed. 
Dr Rasaq Oyeleke of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development addressing the participants.

Dr Rasaq Oyeleke of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development addressing the participants.

The Activity trained 1,205 women in homestead farming, especially vegetables, to improve household nutritional status and increase women’s income in the communities. They also trained 2,293 youth and women in agricultural production and entrepreneurship to reduce unemployment in the region and prevent idle youth from being recruited by insurgents.  USAID Senior Agriculture Economist and the Activity’s Agreement Officer’s Representative, Dr Charles Iyangbe, said he was happy to see normalcy returning and hopeful that USAID would still achieve the field visit objectives through partner DEV TECH. He also saithat despite the low number of 98 farmer loans, USAID is quite pleased with the Activity’s achievements so far.  Iyangbe highlighted factors that all actors need to transform agriculture in Nigeria: the input market, output market, and financethree key factors that cause inefficiencies among smallholder farmers. “We don’t even need to gather these farmers for training anymore, but once we fix these three factors, inefficiency will be solved. We need to improve these to move forward,” he stated. 
Alhaji Dauda Ibrahim Mbulo, Program Manager, Adamawa State ADP giving his address.

Alhaji Dauda Ibrahim Mbulo, Program Manager, Adamawa State ADP giving his address.

The Special Adviser to the Central Bank of Nigeria Governor on Development Finance, Anthony Ifechukwu, declared the workplan a step in the right direction for Nigerian agriculture in particular and the economy as a whole.  In his goodwill message, Dr Razak Oyeleke of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) highlighted sustainability, nutrition, and finance as critical issues to address in Nigeria’s North-East.  Representing the Managing Director of NIRSAL, Nura Abubakar Abba, stated that out of the 62,000 farmers aggregated by IITA, between 25,000 and 30,000 were able to get financing from CBN up to the tune of ₦1.2 billion. Due to the cropping calendar, NIRSAL could not meet up with the disbursement. Despite the challenges, however, there are still positive stories to tell.  The meeting summarized the first year’s achievements and outlined the second year’s activities. Team leads presented the workplan on the three components, building on the successes recorded in year one such as training and outreach of stakeholders, strengthening the market system and networks serving smallholder farmers disenfranchised by conflict, and engaging women and youth to turn the critical number in the production phase into the enterprise phase at the end of the Activity.   IITA is implementing the Activity in collaboration with International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and Catholic Relief Services (CRS). 

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Olaosebikan, Olamide

Olamide Deborah Nwanze is a Senior Research Associate specializing in gender mainstreaming research to inform participatory and inclusive breeding, variety development, and seed systems policies regarding root, tuber, and banana (RTB) crops in the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture Headquarters, Ibadan, Nigeria. She is a PhD candidate at the University of Ibadan and holds an MSc and B. Agric in Agricultural Extension and Rural Development. Olamide is a fellow of the African Women in Agricultural Research and Development – Gender Responsive Agricultural Systems Policy (AWARD-GRASP) and the Gender Responsive Researchers Equipped for Agricultural Transformation (GREAT). She seeks to apply her gender-mainstreaming learnings, gender-responsive research, and policy development, and review expertise to facilitate women, youth, children, and vulnerable social group’s access to and adoption of agricultural Innovations that guarantee food, nutrition, income, and livelihood security in Africa. Her current roles include mentoring research fellows, development of guides and training manuals, implementation and adaptation of gender frameworks and tools, value chain actors’ engagement as citizen science partners, policy review and redesign, data management, and analysis. Her current research explores mixed methods and participatory and interdisciplinary approaches to capture and highlight gender dynamics, needs, preferences, and challenges stakeholders face within the agricultural livelihood value chain to prioritize gender-inclusive strategies in breeding programs, policy design, and implementation.

At IITA, she contributes to the implementation of the CGIAR Accelerated Breeding Initiative and Genetic Innovation Programs; participatory and gender research within the NextGen CassavaHarvestPlusRTBFoods, and Tricot-ClimMob 1000Farms Projects; and gender knowledge communication via the G-LENS webinar series, video documentary, policy briefspublications, and blogs.

 

Recent publications

de Sousa, K., van Etten, J., Manners, R. Bello, A., Teeken, B., Olaosebikan, O., et al. 2024. The tricot approach: an agile framework for decentralized on-farm testing supported by citizen science. A retrospective. Agron. Sustain. Dev. 44, 8. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-023-00937-1

Madu, T., Onwuka, S., Nwafor, S., Onyemauwa, N., Ejechi, M., Ofoeze, M., Ukeje, B., Eluagu, C., Olaosebikan, O., Okoye, B., 2024. Gender-Inclusive Consumer Studies Improve Cassava Breeding in Nigeria in: Frontiers in Sociology, volume 9, number: 1224504, doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2024.1224504

Olaosebikan, O.; Bello, A.; Utoblo, O.; Okoye, B.; Olutegbe, N.; Garner, E.; Teeken, B.; Bryan, E.; Forsythe, L.; Cole, S.; Madu, T. 2023.  Stressors and Resilience within the Cassava Value Chain in Nigeria: Preferred Cassava Variety Traits and Response Strategies of Men and Women to Inform Breeding. Sustainability 15, 7837. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15107837

Okoye, B., Ofoeze, M., Ejechi, M., Onwuka, S., Nwafor, S., Onyemauwa, N., Ukeje, B., Eluagu, C., Obidiegwu, J.*, Olaosebikan, O., Madu, T.* 2023. Prioritizing preferred traits in the yam value chain in Nigeria: a gender situation analysis in: Frontiers in Sociology, volume 8, number: 1232626, pages 1 – 9, ISSN 2297-7775, 2023. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsoc.2023.1232626/full

Olaosebikan, O., Bello, A. A., de Sousa, K., Ndjouenkeu, R., Adesokan, M., Alamu, E. O., Agbona, A., van Etten, J., Kegah, F. N.*, Dufour, D., Bouniol, A., Teeken, B. 2023. Consumer acceptability of cassava gari-eba food products across cultural and environmental settings using the triadic comparison of technologies approach (tricot) in: Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture,

Teeken, B., Olaosebikan, O., Bello, A. A., Madu, T.*, Cole, S. M. 2023. Qualitative assessment on the positionality and preferences of dyads in relation to cassava-related activities: working with tricot trial citizen scientists https://hdl.handle.net/10568/138326 Type: Manual

Bouniol, A., Ceballos, H., Bello, A. A., Teeken, B., Olaosebikan, O., Owoade, D., Agbona, A., Fotso Kuate, A., Madu, T.*, Okoye, B.*, Ofoeze, M.*, Nwafor, S.*, Onyemauwa, N.*, Adinsi, L.*, Forsythe, L., Dufour, D. 2023. Varietal impact on women’s labour, workload and related drudgery in processing root, tuber and banana crops: focus on cassava in sub-Saharan Africa in: Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, pages 1 – 25, ISSN 0022-5142,

Bello, A. A., Agbona, A., Olaosebikan, O., Edughaen, G., Dufour, D., Bouniol, A., Iluebbey, P., Ndjouenkeu, R.*, Rabbi, I. Y., Teeken, B. 2023. Genetic and environmental effects on processing productivity and food product yield: drudgery of women’s work in: Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, pages 1 – 32, ISSN 0022-5142, 5

Cavicchioli, M., Zimbiti, T., Teeken, B., Nwanze, D.O., Liani, M., Parkes, E. & Bello, A. 2023. IITA-Gender Responsive Breeding Training Report. Genetic Resources Center, IITA-HQ, Ibadan, 21-23 September, 2022. Ibadan, Nigeria: IITA, (34 p.).https://hdl.handle.net/10568/131368

Agbona, A. Peteti P., Teeken B., Olaosebikan O. Bello, A. A., Parkes, E., Rabbi, I. Y., Mueller, L., Egesi, C., Kulakow, P. 2022. Data Management in Multi-disciplinary African RTB Crop Breeding Programs. In: Williamson, H.F., Leonelli, S. (eds) Towards Responsible Plant Data Linkage: Data Challenges for Agricultural Research and Development. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13276-6_5

Lora Forsythe, Pricilla Marimo, Sarah Mayanja, Olamide D. Olaosebikan, Esme Stuart, Bela Teeken, Benjamin Okoye, Tessy Madu, (2021). Cross-product Gender Analysis of RTBfoods Step 2 Gendered Food Mapping on RTB Products. Understanding the Drivers of Trait Preferences and the Development of Multi-user RTB Product Profiles, WP1. London, UK: RTBfoods Field Scientific Report, 30 p.

Teeken, B., Garner, E., Agbona, A., Balogun, I., Olaosebikan, O., Bello, A., Madu, T., Okoye, B., Egesi, C., Kulakow, P. and Tufan, H.A. 2021. Beyond “Women’s Traits”: Exploring How Gender, Social Difference, and Household Characteristics Influence Trait Preferences. Frontiers Sustainable Food Systems 5:740926. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2021.740926

Teeken, B., Agbona, A., Bello, A., Olaosebikan, O., Alamu, E., Adesokan, M., Awoyale, W., Madu, T., Okoye, B., Chijioke, U., Owoade, D., Okoro, M., Bouniol, A., Dufour, D., Hershey, C., Rabbi, I., Maziya‐Dixon, B., Egesi, C., Tufan, H. and Kulakow, P. (020. Understanding cassava varietal preferences through pairwise ranking of gari‐eba and fufu prepared by local farmer–processors. Int J Food Sci Technol. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijfs.14862

Bela Teeken, Olamide Olaosebikan, Ireti Balogun, Benjamin Okoye, Tessy Madu, Steven Cole, Abolore Bello, Elizabeth Parkes. (2020). Piloting the G+ customer and product profile tools for gender-responsive cassava breeding in Nigeria. Nigeria: International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA). https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11766/13000