AFOS Foundation  commits €5.5m to support Nigeria’s agric system 

By Luther Animashaun

AFOS Foundation, a Germany-based autonomous and charitable foundation, said it has spent over  €5.5 million since 2017 towards improving the agriculture sector through capacity building, value-driven organisational development, management development, corporate governance and product development interventions.

Oladipupo Akoni, the chief executive officer and country representative,while speaking on the foundation’s interventions in Nigeria’s agricultural sector in the past six years, said the  project activities are aimed at improving the performance of small farmers, agricultural companies, microfinance banks and other stakeholders in the agriculture sector.

Addressing journalists at the AFOS Foundation’s first stakeholders’ roundtable event held in Lagos, Akoni said AFOS Foundation has reached over 45,000 smallholder farmers in Nigeria with the attendant positive impacts on their skills, productivity and earned incomes, and targets to reach 60,000 small farmers by the end of 2024.

Furthermore, the country representative said that to consolidate on the foundation’s achievements in Nigeria, AFOS’ projects is aimed at developing the agricultural practices for smallholder farmers, institutionalised dual vocational training systems, value-based management training, and development of an agricultural training centre for the agric sector, in addition to Microinsurance Product Development, Agric Finance training and sensitisation for the Microfinance sub-sector.

Commenting on the purpose of the event and its benefits to the agric sector,Akoni said: “AFOS’ ongoing project, which is the Agricultural Training Centre (ATC) being facilitated by our implementation partner in Nigeria -MLDC, will have a tremendous impact on the Nigerian agricultural sector by addressing its skills and development challenges, as well as capacity replacement, especially in this era of massive emigration.”