DELIVER Nigeria

Context and Project Objective

Smallholder vegetable farmers in Kaduna and Kano states struggle with low yields and income. Limited access to markets hampers their production and growth. High post-harvest losses, lack of financing, and the impacts of climate change further burden these farmers. Additionally, vegetable consumption in the region is low in both quantity and variety, constraining market growth and negatively impacting human health.

In response, DELIVER Nigeria seeks to enhance the livelihoods and income of smallholder farmers and to promote healthier dietary habits by encouraging increased consumption of a variety of vegetables. The project will achieve these goals by building the capacity of smallholder farmers in vegetable production and marketing, climate resilience, and strategies for reducing post-harvest losses. The project will also focus on strengthening sector professionals, including government and NGO extension agents; increasing market connections; improving access to finance; and boosting vegetable consumption.

The DELIVER Nigeria consortium—Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), East-West Seed Knowledge Transfer Foundation, and Wageningen University & Research—will deploy a three-pronged approach focusing on supply, demand, and access to finance to enhance agricultural productivity and economic opportunities. For supply, the project will showcase better yields through peer-led demonstrations and practical training in vegetable production for smallholder farmers, with a focus on reaching youth and women. Training sessions will incorporate climate-smart farming techniques and agronomic science. To boost demand, promotional activities and formative research will be conducted to position vegetables favorably in production, consumption, and markets. Access to finance will be enhanced through innovative financial products, digital inclusion, and capacity building, linking farmers to microfinance services and developing scalable business models.

This intervention builds on the 2019–2024 SDGP Facility project Transforming Nigeria’s Vegetable Markets, through which EWS-KT trained 61,600 smallholder farmers in profitable and sustainable farming practices. The DELIVER Nigeria project aims to leverage the networks of these trained farmers when expanding to new areas and to work with some of these farmers to address the main gap observed during the previous project: access to finance. In total, 25,000 farmers trained under the SDGP project will be positioned for financing and farm business reinvestment, and 25,000 new farmers will be provided with training in improved agronomic techniques. In this way, the project will directly train 25,000 new smallholder farmers and empower 50,000 in total over 3 years.

The outputs of this intervention are:

• Support 1,000 demonstration plots, managed by 500 key farmers (at least 50% youth and 30% women), to build the capacity of 25,000 smallholder farmers to produce vegetables as a business and reduce post-harvest losses. Farmers adopting these new techniques will produce at least 30t/ha of vegetables per season (2 seasons per year).
• Increase knowledge of business planning and finance options for an additional 25,000 smallholder farmers who were trained in a previous project, and increase access to finance for 500 of these farmers to facilitate commercial vegetable production and marketing.
• Build the capacity of 40 input suppliers to effectively support smallholder farmers.
• Build the capacity of 100 sector professionals on crop agronomy, GAP, and safe handling and storage of chemicals and fertilizers. 
• Increase the quantity and diversity of vegetables purchased and consumed in communities where farmers were previously trained in vegetable production

Expected Outcomes

• Smallholder farmers are engaged in diverse vegetable production and perceive vegetable production as an income generation opportunity.
• Consumers are willing to purchase new varieties of vegetables.
• Improved yield of vegetables among smallholder farmers, including youth and women.
• Improved storage and safety of vegetables, thereby reducing post-harvest losses.
• Smallholder farmers are able to scale up existing businesses and have better opportunities to access finance options.

Project Partners

Funding partner: Accelerating Resilient Food Systems in Africa (ARFSA), a program of the Netherlands Enterprise Agency commissioned by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. With knowledge and expertise, ARFSA helps organizations with proven experience to scale up and accelerate their contribution to resilient local food systems, working together to increase food security in Africa and Yemen.

Implementing partners: Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) (lead partner); Wageningen University & Research 

Project Period

1 July 2024 – 30 June 2027

Location

Nigeria: Kaduna and Kano states