The National Agricultural Land Development Authority is pushing ahead with plans to reclaim abandoned forest reserves across Nigeria and turn them into productive agricultural zones. Cornelius Oluwasegun Adebayo, the agency's executive secretary and chief executive officer, revealed the strategy while inspecting NALDA's Green Hope Horticulture Project and launching its third phase in Odogbolu Local Government Area of Ogun State.
Adebayo said the move tackles multiple challenges at once: insecurity, food shortages, joblessness, and climate vulnerability. He noted that many forest reserves have sat unused for years, becoming havens for criminals.
"We're making efforts and working with state governments to take over some of the abandoned forest reserves," he told journalists. "In Kwara, we're partnering with the Association of Cashew Processors to develop plantations that will feed their factories."
The initiative draws from NALDA's statutory mandate to develop forest and grazing reserves. Adebayo explained that the agency is collaborating with state governments, private investors, and international partners to restore idle land to productive use.
The reclaimed reserves will host agroforestry projects, tree crop plantations, and carbon credit schemes. These efforts will simultaneously boost agricultural output, protect the environment, and curb criminal activity, he added.
Kwara State emerged as a flagship project in this strategy. NALDA is working with the state government and the Cashew Processors Association of Nigeria to convert approximately 18,000 hectares into a large-scale cashew plantation.
The plantation will support backward integration by supplying raw materials to local processing industries. It will also create employment for communities nearby, Adebayo said.
"This will create jobs, provide raw materials for local industries, and discourage criminal activities within the reserve," he explained. The occupied, cultivated, and managed land would leave criminals with fewer spaces to operate, he added.
Beyond security and food production, the forest reserve initiative anchors NALDA's environmental sustainability drive. The authority plans to plant more than one million trees by 2030 across its horticulture projects nationwide.
These tree-planting efforts aim to restore degraded landscapes, strengthen climate resilience, and promote low-carbon agriculture. The comprehensive approach reflects NALDA's commitment to merging productivity with environmental stewardship across the country.
