Agriculture plays a pivotal role in Nigeria where 40 million of the country’s over 200 million population are farmers.
It contributes about 23 percent to Africa’s most populous nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), establishing its economic significance.
However, with 40 million people tilling the grounds for food, the country unfortunately is still import-dependent. Many people live in hunger while the country is suffering from the worst food crisis in decades.
While the agric budget has increased by 127 percent to N826.5 billion in the 2025 budget from N362.9 billion in 2024, signalling the government’s piqued interest in the sector.
Experts say insecurity, climate change, pest infestation/disease outbreak, high logistic cost, and high input cost are five key issues that must be addressed this year to boost food production, as a result of the huge part they played in the 2023/2024 planting season.
Insecurity
Insecurity has been a major problem hindering farmers and foreign investors from visiting farms and putting their money in the sector.
Several farmers lost their lives, many paid huge ransoms to kidnappers who kidnapped them while they went about their daily work on their farms.
This has not only scared farmers away from farming but also declined food production, spiking food inflation to 39.84 percent in December 2024.
Food security experts have said for food production to ramp up in 2025 farms must be made safe for farmers to return —as a key driver of hunger is insecurity prevalent in farming communities.
But farmers say insecurity is gradually declining in hot spot states in the north. Sani Danladi, a crop farmer in Kaduna told BusinessDay that, “the federal government’s attempts to tackle insecurity in food-producing states are working.”
Also, in a recent interview on Arise Television, Africanfarmer Mogaji, a farmer said insecurity is easing across hot spot states.
However, previous reports from the SBM Intelligence showed that farmers’ death toll from 2020 hit 1,356 in 2024 on the back of banditry and farmers-herders clash.
Read also: Farms now safe for farmers return, says Africanfarmer
Climate change
Climate change is considered the most pressing environmental problem facing the globe today, affecting patterns of life and general living.
Flooding, droughts, erosion, and off-season rains have sent planting season out of the way for a country that is dependent on rain-fed agriculture.
In 2024, farmers in northern Nigeria complained about delayed rainfall which resulted in poor yields.
Chidinma Ezeh, team lead at FarmCas told BusinessDay how in the early months of 2024, she depended on irrigation because a lack of rainfall was posing great threat to her plant’s survival — a medium she revealed was capital intensive.
Without efficient solutions, climate change will pose a major risk for farmers in 2025, affecting production and food prices.
According to reports from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), torrential rains and floods across Nigeria last year destroyed more than 1 million tons of crops – enough to feed 13 million people for a year.
In September of 2024, the Alau Dam collapse caused floods that wiped out about 700,000 hectares of farmland and about 200 farms across the country.
As a result of climate change, Bornu, Bauchi, Sokoto, and Jigawa States suffered excessive floods last year.
Pest infestation/disease outbreak
Diseases like ginger blight, black pods, bird flu and pest infestation such as Tuta Absoluta, popularly known as ‘Tomato Ebola’ have wreaked havoc to crops and animals over the years.
The infestation of Tuta Absoluta spiked tomato prices to record highs last year. Large hectares of tomato farms in producing states in the north were ravaged by the disease, increasing prices of the tomatoes above N100,000 for a big basket.
Similarly, ginger blight disease spearheaded N12 billion loss for farmers in 2023.
According to farmers, swift and efficient intervention is needed to completely tackle these diseases. It will be a major challenge farmers would have to face in 2025.
High logistic costs
Fuel hikes and soaring food prices have become simultaneously related. Data shows that each time the price of premium motor spirit (PMS) or petrol increases, food inflation moves in the same direction.
Traders and farmers complain of high levies imposed on them by middlemen, security personnel and touts en route from farms to townships. These expended costs are added to the selling price of food items.
Petrol-reliant vehicles are used to ferry agricultural products from rural areas to townships and state markets. Hence, the higher the costs involved in transporting goods from farms, the higher food prices in markets.
High input costs
Soaring costs of fertilisers, machinery, pesticides, and seeds are factors that continue to affect crop yield.
Farmers are forced to use low quality seeds that yield poorly because of rising costs of quality hybrid seeds and seedlings.
This has made them to use low quality seeds that are relatively cheaper, thus reducing their yields per hectare.
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