The Norwegian government has earmarked $6.3 million for farmers in northeastern Nigeria, a welcome development in the wake of devastating floods which imposed biting losses on the husbandmen.
Knut Eiliv-Lein, the Norwegian ambassador to Nigeria, made this known at the signing ceremony in Abuja, which marked the beginning of the project’s implementation.
The project has a three-year budget of around $6.3 million, in addition to additional key supports.
Made in collaboration with the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation, FAO, the donation is intended to help over 300,000 of the most vulnerable people in North-East Nigeria.
The renewed donation comes just a few weeks after the FAO released its October 2022 Food and Nutrition Analysis, also known as the Cadre Harmonisé Report, which revealed that approximately 17 million people, including internally displaced persons, IDPs, and returnees, are in food crises across 26 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
It warned that the number of Nigerians experiencing food crises might rise from about 17 million to 25.3 million if nothing is done to salvage the food crisis.
The report named high food prices as a result of the flooding damage to fields, crops, and cattle as well as high prices for agricultural inputs as the main causes of the potential increase in the number of Nigerians that will be impacted by the food crises currently rocking the country if nothing is done.
Other variables include the weakening of the naira, insurgencies in Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa in the northeast, and kidnappings and armed banditry in the states of Sokoto, Kaduna, Benue, and Niger.
