The National Agriculture Advisory Services (NAADS) is one of the statutory semi-autonomous bodies in the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF); established in 2001 by an Act of Parliament (NAADS Act 2001) to specifically facilitate efficient and effective delivery of agricultural advisory services for enhanced production and productivity.

The role and responsibility of NAADS has been evolving since its establishment on the basis of lessons learnt from its implementation until 2014, when its Mandate was refocused to “Providing Support for the Management of Agricultural Input Distribution chains, promotion of Strategic commodity interventions, agricultural chain development and Farmer access to Agricultural Financing.

Under its new mandate NAADS contributes to the achievement of the priority areas identified under Agricultural Sector Strategic Plan (ASSP) for 2015/16 to 2019/20. NAADS hence focuses on, among others:

• Increasing access to critical and quality Agricultural Inputs for smallholder farmers including Women, Youth, Older persons and People with disability (PWDs).
• Supporting the development of Agriculture commodity value chains through provision of Agribusiness Value Addition, and Marketing linkage services.
• Facilitating farmer groups/cooperatives to access appropriate agricultural financial services.
• Strengthening institutional and collaboration frameworks to enhance operational effectiveness and efficiency.

Performance levels on the above depend on key result areas below:

Programme management and coordination:

which involves; Number of staff against establishment; Number of equipment against establishment

Provision of priority and strategic agricultural inputs to farmers:

which involves number of acres for priority and strategic crop commodities established; number of animals distributed; number of farming households supported with agricultural inputs

Managing distribution of agricultural inputs: This involves;

Number of field verification and inspection exercises conducted; Number of field supervisory exercises conducted

Support to upper end of the Agricultural Value chains and Agribusiness Development:

This involves; Number of value addition facilities established, Number of commodity platforms supported in agribusiness development services, Number of value chain studies conducted for selected priority and strategic commodities

Planning, monitoring and evaluation:

This takes number of guidelines formulated and disseminated; number of field monitoring activities conducted

Number of evaluation studies conducted