PISA Hearts Humanitarian Foundation Deploys Grassroots Strategy 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 analysis. 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 reach for millions of Nigerians.

Against this backdrop, the PISA Hearts Humanitarian Foundation is implementing a grassroots transformation strategy focused on strengthening smallholder cooperatives, which produce more than 70 percent of Nigeria's food supply. The foundation's Smart-Agro Innovation (SAI) project represents a comprehensive approach to rural development that fuses agriculture, technology, and human capital development in Nigeria's most vulnerable communities.

The ambitious program aims to reach 10,000 smallholder farmers and vulnerable households by December 2026 through a multi-faceted support system. This 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. The foundation estimates requiring $25 million to fully scale the program across three states, funding it now seeks from global donors, development partners, and impact investors.

At the core of PISA's model is a three-pronged approach emphasizing 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 creates multiplier effects where every dollar invested strengthens entire communities rather than single households.

For global investors and philanthropic organizations, the model offers compelling advantages including high-impact scalability through cooperative clusters, sustainability through capacity building that promotes self-reliance, policy influence through structured dialogue with state governments, and visibility opportunities through co-branded success reports and impact stories. The foundation is inviting global organizations to co-sponsor expanded pilots in states including Delta, Nasarawa, Ondo, and Kaduna, providing detailed project blueprints, impact monitoring frameworks, and customizable partnership models through their website at https://www.princeighosadjerefoundation.org.

As Nigeria approaches another lean season with millions facing food insecurity, the PISA Hearts Humanitarian Foundation positions its cooperative-based approach as both immediate crisis response and long-term solution to building resilient local food systems. The foundation characterizes its work not as charity but as nation-building, emphasizing that strengthening local food systems helps stabilize conflict-prone regions, protect vulnerable households, and stimulate rural enterprise in one of Africa's most consequential development challenges.