Benue Launches Five Year Plan to Restore Food Security

(Hyacinth Alia. Photo by Leadership News)

A five-year Strategic Food Security Plan has been approved and introduced by the Benue State Government with the goals of boosting agricultural output, enhancing farmers’ standard of living, and mitigating the effects of insecurity on food production throughout the state.

The Enhancing Food Security and Peacebuilding in Nigeria via Strategic Planning Project (EFSPP), which brought together government representatives, farmers, scholars, traditional leaders, and other stakeholders, recently unveiled the proposal.

Speaking at the launch, the Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Security, Benjamin Ashaver, urged ministries, departments and agencies to take ownership of the plan to ensure its successful implementation.

Represented by the Governor’s Technical Adviser on Agriculture, Danjuma Adejo, the commissioner also called on local government councils, traditional institutions and farming communities to embrace the initiative and sustain the collaboration that produced the strategy.

He formally endorsed the state’s five-year food security plan and reaffirmed Governor Hyacinth Alia’s commitment to its implementation, including a mid-term review scheduled for 2028 and an end-term evaluation in 2031.

He also commended the policy team of the Supply Chain Research and Innovation Hub, led by Ajibola Oladipo and Shalem Shiekuma, for developing the plan.

The commissioner, however, lamented that years of attacks by armed herders had displaced thousands of farmers, disrupted farming activities and reduced agricultural output in the state.

He said Benue State’s agricultural fortunes had, in recent years, been tested by forces beyond the ordinary challenges of farming, noting that insecurity had driven farmers from their farmlands, displacement had fractured planting and harvest seasons, and land-use conflicts between herders and farming communities had eroded the trust that once held rural communities together.

Presenting the Strategic Food Security Plan to the state government, Akange Edward said the document provides a framework for stabilising agricultural production, strengthening land governance, rebuilding rural economies and improving logistics and market systems.

He explained that the strategy is designed to address the underlying factors undermining food production and rural livelihoods across the state, adding that the recurring attacks on farming communities had exposed deeper structural challenges affecting both agriculture and peacebuilding.

He described the challenge confronting Benue not merely as agricultural underperformance, but as structural fragility at the intersection of food systems and conflict dynamics.

He noted that although Benue is widely regarded as Nigeria’s “Food Basket of the Nation” because of its fertile land, abundant water resources and resilient farming population, insecurity, displacement, land-use conflicts, climate pressures and inadequate infrastructure have significantly weakened agricultural productivity.

The Strategic Food Security Plan is expected to serve as a roadmap for improving food production, strengthening resilience among farming communities and supporting sustainable peace and economic development in the state.