Nigeria’s agricultural sector heads into 2026 facing a mixed outlook, with prospects of easing input costs offering relief to farmers, even as deep-rooted challenges around storage threaten to limit gains, according to industry experts.
Experts say the divergent projections reflect the sector’s complexity, where improvements in one part of the value chain are often undermined by weaknesses elsewhere.
Together, these factors suggest that Nigeria’s food outlook in 2026 will depend less on production alone and more on whether policymakers and private investors can address storage and security alongside cost relief.
Read also: Agric in 2025: Food supply improves but farmers record losses
Input costs
Agricultural experts have suggested that promised strategic intervention by the federal government could lead to a decrease in the costs of farm inputs.
“From what we have been discussing with the government, they are going to reduce the cost of input, especially fertiliser and seed,” said Muhammed Magaji, president of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN).
This projection, Magaji says, is expected to encourage farmers to double up on farming, make higher profits that will be commensurate with their efforts and also increase overall food output.
“They (federal government) have said they are going to have a lot of programmes this year. With this, I believe we are going to have a bright agricultural year.”
This positive projection by the AFAN president comes after farmers suffered huge losses last year on the back of increased input costs. This surge pushed the average price of a fertiliser to about N50,000, rising by over 41 percent.
For most of last year, farmers could not compete with input prices. The costs of seeds and seedlings almost doubled. Prices of herbicides and pesticides increased by more than 20 percent.
Femi Oke, president of the Lagos chapter of AFAN, reiterated that prices of farming inputs could considerably drop in 2026 as a result of promises by the federal government.
“The government is paying attention to issues affecting the agricultural sector,” Oke said. “Issues like input, terrible roads that limit market access, will be tackled in 2026,” he assured.
Read also: How FG can drive agric growth in 2026
Storage gaps
Although a favourable climate drove positive outputs across several crop value chains last year, they were wasted due to insufficient storage infrastructure.
Experts project that without sustainable collaboration between the private and public sectors, Nigeria’s storage challenge might pose a risk to the sector in 2026.
Adesina Laja, an agribusiness expert, said agriculture in Nigeria is beleaguered by infrastructural issues, ranging from bad road networks to poor storage systems across states.
However, he notes that storage gap could erode the gains of the food sector this year without active interventions.
“40 percent of Nigeria’s food production is turned to waste,” Laja said. “If we have infrastructure that supports food storage and roads, the sector will perform well.”
Earlier last year, due to inadequate storage, tomato farmers lost an average of N2 billion to post-harvest loss. This reflects the significance of efficient storage systems in the agricultural sector.
Analysts projection
Agriculture has accounted for only about five percent of total banking system credit over the past five years, a clear indication of more credit needed to drive productivity and improve output, according to a recent CardinalStone research.
While pre-existing structural issues remain prevalent, “we expect growth to be slightly higher than in 2025, reflecting improved energy availability and FX stability,” CardinalStone noted in its 2026 macroeconomic outlook.
The firm projects an expansion in the growth of the sector in 2026. “Accordingly, we forecast agricultural growth of 3 percent in 2026 vs 2.8 percent in 2025.”
