Nigeria and Morocco Reach Accord on Farming Data to Boost National Nutrition

The Presidency has dispatched a high-level delegation to Morocco to finalize a partnership aimed at developing Nigeria's first National Agro-Productivity System, which will facilitate geospatial crop monitoring and food security planning.

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Senator Ibrahim Hadejia, Deputy Chief of Staff in the Office of the Vice President, is leading the delegation, representing Vice President Kashim Shettima, who chairs the Presidential Food Systems Coordinating Unit.

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Technical Assistant on Agriculture to the President Marion Moon disclosed this information in a statement, revealing that the shared geospatial intelligence platform will provide real-time data on crop location, land availability, yield projections, and food security threats nationwide to federal, state, and local governments.

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Moon, who is also the Executive Secretary of the Presidential Food Systems Coordinating Unit, noted that the initiative marks a significant shift in the country's approach to agricultural planning, emphasizing the importance of stronger intelligence in the sector.

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The partnership is set to be formalized through a Memorandum of Understanding between the Presidential Food Systems Coordinating Unit, OCP Africa, and Ground Truth Analytics, which Hadejia will sign on Friday, July 17, 2026.

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According to Moon, the National Agro-Productivity System will be coordinated by the Presidential Food Systems Coordinating Unit under the National Agribusiness Policy Mechanism, which was approved by the National Council on Agriculture and Food Security.

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The initiative will provide the government with timely insights on agricultural land availability, crop location, crop performance, growth stages, and expected yield outcomes, ultimately strengthening production planning, food security monitoring, agribusiness investment, early warning, and policy development.

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Phase One of the initiative will involve a six-month pilot across three states, focusing on localizing the technology through dataset calibration, ground-truthing, and national capacity building.

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The pilot will establish the technical and institutional foundations needed before the system is rolled out nationwide, with the visit to Morocco also providing an opportunity for the Nigerian delegation to undertake technical engagements and institutional visits.

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The Nigeria-Morocco partnership comes exactly three years after President Bola Tinubu declared a state of emergency on food security on July 13, 2023.

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Nigeria's food security crisis deepened in 2023, triggered by the removal of the petrol subsidy and the unification of the naira exchange window, which led to a severe food inflation spiral that pushed the cost of staples beyond the reach of millions of households.

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At its peak in early 2025, Nigeria's food inflation exceeded 40 per cent year-on-year, with rice, maize, tomatoes, and cooking oil recording the sharpest increases, making it one of the highest in the world.

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The World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organisation, and UNICEF raised the alarm about the scale of food insecurity in the country, with UNICEF estimating that over 31.8 million children under five are acutely malnourished, the second-highest burden in the world after India.

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The crisis was further compounded by persistent insecurity in the North-West and North-Central farming belts, flooding and climate disruptions in the Middle Belt, and structural weaknesses in the country's agricultural data infrastructure.

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In July 2024, Vice President Kashim Shettima inaugurated the Presidential Food Systems Coordinating Unit, following a memo submitted to President Tinubu on the need for a dedicated food systems council to coordinate the administration's response to the crisis.

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The Presidential Food Systems Coordinating Unit was constituted under the Presidential Economic Coordinating Council, with Marion Moon serving as its Executive Secretary, and has since driven a series of stakeholder engagements across all six geopolitical zones.

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The unit has convened state governors, agricultural ministry officials, the Nigeria Governors' Forum, and development partners around the National Agribusiness Policy Mechanism, which was approved by the National Council on Agriculture and Food Security to align federal and state agricultural interventions.

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In March 2026, state coordinators were deployed across 13 pilot states to strengthen intelligence gathering on agricultural production patterns, following an earlier mass abandonment of rice cultivation by over 3,500 farmers who recorded cumulative losses estimated at N93bn.

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Moon described the Memorandum of Understanding as the Presidential Food Systems Coordinating Unit's first major international technology partnership, with OCP Africa being the world's largest phosphate exporter and a major fertiliser manufacturer operating across at least 30 African countries.

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Ground Truth Analytics, which specializes in satellite-based crop monitoring and geospatial agricultural data, has been deployed across several African markets to deliver field-level insights, and will be a key partner in the initiative.

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The delegation to Morocco comprises representatives from various government agencies, including the Office of the Vice President, the Presidential Food Systems Coordinating Unit, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, as well as technical experts supporting the initiative's implementation.