By Faridat Salifu
Speaking from the Africa Food Systems Forum in Kigali, Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, made the case that his country can’t afford to wait any longer on agricultural reform.
At the center of that case sits the Agricultural Extension Services Revitalisation Bill, which he recently told journalist needs urgent passage if Nigeria wants to turn around farmer productivity and shore up a food system under growing strain.
Rwanda’s forum, he said, isn’t just background noise, its themes track almost exactly with what Nigeria is already trying to build domestically, namely a shift away from subsistence farming toward agriculture that actually functions as a business.
That alignment showed up clearly in this year’s forum theme, “Investing in Africa’s Agri-Food Systems: Nourishing Nations, Growing Jobs, Building Resilience,” which Kyari described as essentially a roadmap for where Nigeria needs to go on food security, job creation and climate resilience.
Extension services, in his framing, aren’t a peripheral issue, they’re the engine behind food sufficiency, productivity growth and long term agricultural progress.
On the legislative front, Kyari confirmed the bill has already cleared first reading in both the Senate and House of Representatives, a milestone he’s hoping translates into momentum rather than delay.
Once passed, he argued, it would give Nigeria the legal and institutional scaffolding needed to bring extension services into the modern era, connecting farmers more directly to knowledge, technology, financing and markets.
His list of priorities tied to the bill was specific, investment in agri food systems, deliberate inclusion of women, youth and persons with disabilities, climate resilience, and real pathways to finance and markets built through a professionalised extension service.
This isn’t a new focus for him either, Kyari noted that strengthening extension services has topped his agenda since he took office, and that the Kigali conversations only sharpened his sense of urgency.
Several forum topics mapped directly onto the bill’s content, he said, pointing to technology adoption, better seed systems, climate smart agriculture, digital transformation, data management and inclusive development as recurring threads.
He returned again to the theme of partnership, stressing that farmers, researchers, development partners, financial institutions and private industry all need tighter connections to make any of this work.
That’s not a new position for him, he pointed back to remarks he made at the 9th Africa Agriculture Science Week in Abuja back in July 2025, where he’d already pushed for deeper collaboration across government, research, development and private sector lines, calling that kind of alliance central to the bill’s design.
Kyari wasn’t the only Nigerian voice weighing in from Kigali.
Hajia Salamatu Garba, founder and global advocate of the Women Farmers Advancement Network (WOFAN) and head of its ICON2 Project, threw her own support behind the bill in separate remarks to reporters.
She revealed that WOFAN sits among the bill’s co-sponsors, and that the organisation is actively coordinating with stakeholders, private sector partners and farmer clusters to push Nigeria’s extension system forward.
According to Garba, the forum’s core sub-themes, investment in agri food systems, youth empowerment, women’s inclusion, climate resilience and sustainable agriculture, read almost like a preview of what the bill itself is trying to formalise into law.
She confirmed the legislation has moved through its early stages in both chambers of the National Assembly, though a public hearing and further procedural steps still lie ahead.
Her closing appeal was directed straight at Kyari, urging him to help push the bill’s timeline forward, with Garba voicing confidence that its passage would meaningfully strengthen extension services and address some of the toughest problems facing Nigerian farmers today.
