The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (FMAFS) has expressed its readiness to strengthen collaboration and robust partnership with National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to ensure digital identity infrastructure and the National Identification Number (NIN) and build a verifiable, centralized database of genuine farmers as well as achieve Food Sovereignty.
The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Sen. Abubakar Kyari made this known during a courtesy visit by the NIMC Delegation led by the Director General, Engr. Abisoye Coker-Odusote, in Abuja, recently.
The Minister stated that the partnership would ensure that government agricultural grants, inputs, and intervention programs reach the genuine farmers in need, which helps eliminate leakages and ultimately enhance sustainable food security and sovereignty.
Kyari revealed that the ministry has already begun deploying NIMC’s identity management infrastructure to identify genuine beneficiaries of its intervention programmes. He noted that this initiative has improved transparency and contributed to increased women and youth participation in agriculture.
He added that ‘’the collaboration will leverage the National Identification Number (NIN) and NIMC’s identity verification platform to authenticate beneficiaries of government agricultural programmes. This ensures that interventions are targeted only at legitimate farmers and agribusiness entrepreneurs’’.
He stated that the Federal Government has restructured its agricultural subsidy programme to promote self-reliance among beneficiaries instead of long-term dependence on government support.
According to him, “It shouldn’t be a subsidy that will go on perpetually. We have a plan whereby beneficiaries receive support in the first year, the assistance reduces in the second year, and by the third year they should be able to stand on their own.”
‘’The phased approach will create opportunities for more farmers to access government interventions while encouraging sustainable agricultural production and improved productivity’’.
In her welcome remarks, the Director General, NIMC, Engr. Abisoye Coker-Odusote said that agriculture is one of Nigeria’s most strategic sectors because of its critical role in ensuring national food security and driving economic development.
Engr. Odusote revealed that ‘’the recently enacted NIMC Act 2026 has further strengthened the commission’s mandate as Nigeria’s foundational identity authority, positioning it to support ministries, departments and agencies with secure identity verification and digital authentication services’’.
She stated that integrating the National Identification Number into agricultural programmes would improve accountability, reduce fraud and eliminate ghost beneficiaries, while ensuring that scarce public resources are directed to the farmers who genuinely need them.
She pointed out that stronger collaboration between NIMC and the Ministry of Agriculture would also support the Federal Government’s broader digital transformation agenda by using trusted identity systems to improve public service delivery and enhance the effectiveness of social and economic interventions.
She pledged that NIMC would continue to support the provision of trusted identity verification services to strengthen the credibility of government agricultural interventions.
Ezeaja Ikemefuna
Head, Department of Information
11/7/2026
