PISA Hearts Foundation Deploys Smart-Agro Initiative to Combat Nigeria's Deepening Food Crisis

Nigeria faces one of its most severe food crises in decades, with 30.6 million people projected to experience acute food and nutrition insecurity between June and August 2025 according to FAO's Cadre Harmonisé. The crisis stems from multiple factors including prolonged conflict in the northeast, banditry and displacement in the northwest, climate change-induced erratic rainfall and droughts, and inflation that has pushed basic food commodities beyond the reach of millions.

Smallholder cooperatives, which produce more than 70 percent of Nigeria's food, represent the country's best hope for building food security from the ground up according to development specialists. However, these essential organizations remain underfunded and structurally fragile despite their critical role in pooling resources, accessing capital, and creating bargaining power for farmers.

The PISA Hearts Humanitarian Foundation is addressing this gap through its Smart-Agro Innovation (SAI) project, a comprehensive initiative designed to fuse agriculture, technology, and human capital development in Nigeria's poorest communities. The foundation aims to reach 10,000 smallholder farmers and vulnerable households by December 2026 through a support package that includes family primary healthcare coverage, modern agronomic training, access to finance and digital financial inclusion, smart-agriculture policy advocacy, climate resilience strategies, and market linkage structures.

At the core of the foundation's model is a three-pronged approach focusing on financial inclusion for cooperative members through grant and loan systems, capacity building in climate-smart agriculture and cooperative leadership, and market linkages connecting rural farmers to processors, aggregators and off-takers. The foundation emphasizes that working with organized groups rather than individuals ensures that every dollar invested strengthens entire communities, not just single households.

To fully scale the program across three states, PISA estimates it will require $25 million in funding from global donors, development partners, and impact investors. The foundation is positioning its model as particularly attractive to philanthropic organizations and social-impact funds due to its high-impact scalability through cooperative clusters, sustainability through capacity building and financial inclusion, policy influence through structured dialogue with state governments, and visibility opportunities for funders through co-branded success reports and impact stories.

The PISA Hearts Humanitarian Foundation is inviting global organizations to co-sponsor an expanded pilot in states including Delta, Nasarawa, Ondo, and Kaduna. The foundation provides detailed project blueprints, impact and monitoring frameworks, state-by-state budget estimates, and customizable partnership models aligned with donor priorities through its website at https://www.princeighosadjerefoundation.org. As Nigeria approaches another lean season, the foundation emphasizes that investing in smallholder cooperatives represents not just charity but nation-building, offering measurable impact in one of Africa's most consequential development challenges.