The World Bank-assisted Agro Climatic Resilience Semi-Arid Landscape (ACReSAL) project says the agricultural component, which supported 10,000 rural farmers during the 2025 farming season, significantly increased Nasarawa State’s food security.
Dr Elias Napoleon-Gyobe, Nasarawa State ACReSAl Project Coordinator, said this to newsmen Tuesday in Lafia.
He said that more than 10,000 rural farmers, mostly women, in the climate-impacted communities of Doma and Toto were given a revolving loan of $250,000 to engage in climate-smart agriculture in the two local government areas.
He said the fund by the Nasarawa State Government under the leadership of Gov. Abdullahi Sule for the 2025 farming season boosted food production and significantly increased food security in the state.
According to him, the fund was disbursed through the Community Revolving Fund Management Committee (CRFMC) directly to the beneficiaries.
Napoleon-Gyobe said the state, under the project, procured 25-horsepower tractors and distributed them across the 13 local government areas of the state to boost food production.
He said that the tractors were being managed by the local government implementation committee for sustainability and maintenance, at a subsidised rate to farmers.
“We also gave rural farmers free agricultural inputs such as fertilisers, herbicides, different insecticides, maize seedlings, rice seedlings as well as simple machines and knapsacks.
“There is reduction in the prices of foodstuffs; there is food security.
“You can see that the project has done well with the kind of tractors and farm inputs we gave. People can now buy foodstuffs at an affordable price,” he said.
Napoleon-Gyobe said that the project also boosted irrigation in the catchment areas through drilling of solar boreholes and reticulation of more than 700 households in Doma and Toto LGAs with plastic tanks for rain harvesting.
“For us to reduce the intensity of water within the gully erosion channels, we provided them with plastic tanks, which were properly reticulated in their houses and identified along the corridors.
“We also have another programme called the Climate Smart Agriculture, where we distributed solar irrigation pumps to Community Interest Groups (CIG).
“We built capacities for the communities to enhance food security in terms of technology and the climate-smart agriculture; we also supported them with agricultural inputs to boost their farm productivity,” he said.
Napoleon-Gyobe said the project facilitated massive construction of storm waters and drainage within the corridors of Doma, Toto, and Lafia LGAs and paid compensation of N744 million for the Resettlement Action Plan for those whose houses were affected.
“When the World Bank gave us clearance to start our constructions, Gov. Sule graciously approved the sum of N744 million for compensation and I want to tell you that we have so far paid about 99 per cent of that money,” he said.
He added that the project identified five forest reserves and had since commenced tree planting for the restoration of 50,000 hectares of degraded land in Nasarawa State.
“The way people are cutting down trees in our forest reserve does not commensurate with what is being replaced in the forest, so ACReSAL is now making a deliberate effort to see that we restore the degraded land.
“We planted 6,866 hectares in Ohina forest reserve in Doma; 3,000 hectares in Atabula reserve in Obi; we are waiting for the rains to plant in Sherigia and Nintabi forests, and in the community land donated by Umaisha community in Toto LGA,” Napoleon-Gyobe said.
Agro-Climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscapes (ACReSAL) is a World Bank-financed project designed to tackle the pressing issues of land degradation and climate change in 19 states of Northern Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
