The Federal Government in a bid to strengthen sustainable and inclusive food and agriculture systems has signed two Technical Cooperation Programmes (TCPs) with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations.

The TCPs seek to build resilience, alleviate poverty, hunger and malnutrition in the country.

The signing ceremony which was held in Abuja on Tuesday, was presided over by the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD), Mr. Ernest Umakhihe and FAO’s Representative in Nigeria and to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Mr. Fred Kafeero.

In his remarks, FAO’s Representative noted that the agency had secured funds for the implementation of three TCPs.

This, he said, was in line with the priorities of the Federal Government as outlined in the FAOs Country Programming Framework (CPF) for Nigeria (2018-2022).

Among the TCPs, Kafeero explained, was one that will focus on the implementation of the Hand in Hand Initiative in Nigeria for sustainable and inclusive food and agriculture systems to build resilience and alleviate poverty.

“The Hand in Hand initiative in Nigeria aims to enhance the capacity of communities and rural institutions to take advantage of the unexploited opportunities effectively and sustainably but also address structural constraints and build the resilience of populations in territories under crisis”, he added.

Kafeero also said that the other TCP aims to provide technical support to aflatoxin management and mitigation in Nigeria.

The development, according to him, is expected to help the Government to address food security and nutrition issues, support the national economic diversification drive, ensure food safety, and provide import substitution, among other benefits.

On his part, Assistant FAO Nigeria Representative, Abubakar Suleiman, said that the TCPs was a country-owned initiative developed by FAO that works across stakeholders to develop and identify investment gaps and develop territorial approaches that will target specific value chains, specific commodities and specific entry points.

Suleiman further added that Nigeria through the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development had expressed interest to join the hand-in-hand initiative.

In his words, “Essentially, the hand-in-hand would work very closely with the participating Ministry. There are three main Ministries and other offices, the main Ministries include the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Ministry of Trade and Investment and Ministry of humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development.

“The hand-in-hand has a two-track approach that would focus on investment and impact Program implementation in defined crops and other Commodities that would be later developed and identified and prioritized in the course of the implementation.

“The second track is the humanitarian track that will fast-track resilience building a livelihood recovery programme in particular in territories that are facing different forms of crisis,” Suleiman added