Nigeria is turning to a new agricultural coordination framework to tackle persistent food insecurity, high food prices and low farm productivity, with the Federal Government, World Bank, Oyo State and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture seeking to connect farmers, researchers, financiers and businesses around a common food-production strategy.
The Nigeria AgriConnect Compact, launched by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture on Friday, is designed to address gaps that have continued to limit the country’s ability to translate its vast agricultural potential into affordable food and better incomes for farmers.
The initiative comes as food security remains a major concern. The International Monetary Fund estimated that 27 million Nigerians faced food insecurity in late 2025, while the World Bank said food inflation and poverty continued to weigh heavily on household welfare.
More recently, the Food and Agriculture Organisation reported that Nigeria’s food inflation remained elevated, reaching 20.3 per cent in July 2026. It also warned that insecurity, high input costs and rising fertiliser and transport expenses were constraining agricultural production in several parts of the country.
Against that backdrop, AgriConnect seeks to tackle the problem beyond simply increasing farm production.
The five-year framework will coordinate existing and planned investments around agricultural productivity, processing, finance, infrastructure, market access and private-sector participation, with rice, maize and cassava among the priority value chains.
The initiative targets the creation of about 2.56 million jobs by 2030 while seeking to improve the productivity and market access of smallholder farmers.
Agriculture Minister Abubakar Kyari said Nigeria’s challenge was not a shortage of agricultural programmes or investments but the failure to adequately connect them.
“Nigeria is not suffering from a shortage of agricultural programmes, projects or investment,” Kyari said.
He said investments in irrigation, rural roads, finance, land restoration, processing and markets needed to reinforce one another if they were to translate into greater food production and stronger livelihoods.
“Agriculture is a system, and when one part of that system is disconnected, the value of the investment elsewhere is diminished,” he said.
According to the minister, AgriConnect is intended to provide a framework for linking ongoing interventions and future investments rather than creating another standalone agricultural programme.
The approach comes as evidence points to structural weaknesses beyond the farm gate. The World Bank has identified limited access to quality inputs, climate shocks, weak market linkages and low productivity as constraints on Nigerian agriculture.
A July 2026 World Bank analysis also found that partial crop losses in Nigeria had risen from about six per cent to more than 20 per cent of plots between 2018/19 and 2023/24, with climate shocks, environmental stress and insecurity among the factors driving the deterioration.
Insecurity remains another major obstacle, particularly in parts of northern Nigeria where attacks by armed groups have disrupted farming activities and forced some households to reduce cultivated areas or suspend production, according to the FAO.
Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde said increasing production alone would not resolve Nigeria’s food crisis if farmers remained disconnected from finance, storage, processing, transportation and markets.
“We have hardworking farmers, respected research institutions and innovative young people, fertile land and a large domestic market. Yet, many farmers remain poor, food remains expensive, and too much of what we produce is lost before it reaches consumers,” Makinde said.
He said the agricultural sector needed to be treated as a complete economic system in which production was linked to security, research, extension services, finance, rural roads, storage, processing, standards, logistics and markets.
Under the AgriConnect framework, efforts will focus on improving smallholder productivity, modernising policies to attract private investment and strengthening financial systems that can expand access to credit for farmers and agribusinesses.
The framework also seeks to coordinate funding for projects addressing food and nutrition needs for nearly three million people and support the creation of about 2.5 million new and better jobs through stronger agricultural value chains.
The World Bank approved a separate $500m Sustainable Agricultural Value-Chains for Growth project in March 2026, designed to increase smallholder productivity, strengthen value chains and improve food and nutrition security. The project is expected to benefit up to one million smallholder farmers and mobilise additional private investment.
The broader AgriConnect approach therefore places greater emphasis on linking investments rather than treating farming, processing, finance and distribution as separate interventions.
For Nigeria, the test will be whether the framework can help convert increased agricultural activity into a more reliable food supply, lower post-harvest losses, better farmer incomes and food prices that households can afford.
With food inflation still elevated and production facing pressure from insecurity, climate shocks and high input costs, the success of the initiative will ultimately depend on whether those connections translate into measurable improvements beyond government programmes and project announcements.
