The federal government has launched the South-West phase of its Renewed Hope Farm Input Support Program in Ekiti State, distributing 80,640 bags of fertilizer to 20,160 smallholder farmers across Ekiti, Ondo, Ogun, and Lagos states as part of a national agricultural intervention designed to improve productivity, stabilize food prices, and strengthen rural livelihoods during the current planting season.
National Agricultural Development Fund Executive Secretary Mohammed Ibrahim, flagging off the program in Ado-Ekiti, described the initiative as a structured intervention built around data-driven targeting rather than routine distribution, saying each of the 20,160 benefiting farmers would receive four bags of fertilizer with allocations aligned to the crop-specific agricultural strengths of each participating state. Ekiti farmers would use the inputs primarily in yam, maize, and tomato production, with other states assigned priority crops reflecting their comparative advantages.
He said the administration’s agricultural agenda demanded a shift from measuring success by the volume of inputs distributed to measuring it by productivity improvements, increases in food availability, and demonstrated improvements in farmers’ household incomes, and that the program had been designed with those outcome metrics as its primary accountability standard.
Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi said the federal government was intensifying collaboration with farmers’ associations to ensure interventions responded to actual conditions on the ground, and expressed confidence that the distributed fertilizers would reach active farms and translate directly into measurable production gains.
Ekiti State Governor Biodun Oyebanji, represented by the Secretary to the State Government Professor Habibat Adubiaro, said the initiative aligned strongly with the state’s own agricultural transformation agenda and commended the federal government for selecting Ekiti as the South-West flag-off location. He expressed optimism that the joint federal-state investment in agricultural productivity would accelerate food sovereignty, rural prosperity, and inclusive economic growth across the region.
