Food security: Egbetokun unveils ‘Soil to Security’ campaign team

By Mariam Abeeb

Police Officers’ Wives Association’s (POWA), unveiled the ‘National Soil to Security’ campaign Team (SSC), to fast track the implementation of 12 million young Nigerian women through transformative agribusiness education.

This is contained in a statement made available to newsmen in Abuja on Wednesday by the President, UNESCO Read and Earn Federation(UNESCO REF), Prince Abdulsalami Ladigbolu-Oranmiyan.

Ladigbolu-Oranmiyan quoted Dr Elizabeth Egbetokun, President of POWA to have said that the unveiling was geared toward the commemoration of POWA’s 61st Anniversary Celebration.

Egbetokun is also the National Advocate for the UNESCO Read and Earn Federation (UNESCO REF) Young Women in Agriculture (YWA) Initiative.

She said the team would operate as the official outreach and mobilisation engine under the UNESCO REF Strategic Intervention Programme – ALPHA (SIP-ALPHA) framework.

The framework, she said was designed to advance food security, promote climate-smart agriculture, and deliver inclusive socioeconomic empowerment across all regions of Nigeria.

According to her, the initiative also serves as a strategic response to the Federal Government’s emergency declaration on food security made on July 13, 2023.

The team, she said  were also designed to create sustainable income and position young women in high-value agricultural sectors from production to export.

“Through this campaign, we are enabling young women to break free from poverty by engaging in resilient, scalable agriculture that creates income, dignity, and national impact,” Egbetokun said.

She said the YWA initiative and the SSC campaign directly support key national priorities, including President Bola Tinubu’s food security and agribusiness transformation agenda.

Accordingly, she said that it also support the Renewed Hope Initiative led by First Lady Sen. Oluremi Tinubu.

She added that other initiative the project support includes: UN Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 1, 2, 5,8, and 13.

Egbetokun noted that the campaign was also a strategic response to the Federal Government’s emergency declaration on food security issued on July 13, 2023.

Launched through the SIP-ALPHA Category II Framework, the YWA Initiative introduces alternative, tech-driven crop production models such as hydroponics farming and Kenaf-Agro enterprise.