…Surging imports erode profits
Investors are calling for urgent production subsidies to avert a worsening food-supply crisis in 2026 in the face of mounting farmers’ losses.
Soaring input costs and falling farm-gate prices, now below the economic cost of production, have left many farmers unable to break even, threatening food security and wiping out returns on investment.
The country’s output of key staples declined in 2025 as farmers faced pressure from rising input costs, which eroded their profits.
Nigeria had to depend on cheap imports to fill the supply gap. A total of N3.34 trillion food products were imported into the country from January through September in 2025, indicating a 23 percent rise when compared to N2.7 trillion in the corresponding period of 2024, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) trade report show.
“The high costs of inputs and farmers’ inability to break-even are responsible for the quantum rise we have seen in imports,” said Adesina Laja, an agribusiness expert.
He noted that farmers are trapped between shrinking revenues and soaring costs for fertiliser, seeds and chemicals.
Laja, a former consultant to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, urged the government to subsidise production costs so local farmers can compete with imports and sustain the recent easing in food prices.
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“We need to subsidise fertilisers and seeds for farmers while addressing escalating insecurity so people can go back to farming,” he said.
“We cannot address a long-term problem with short-term solutions, and that is what the government has done in agriculture,” he noted.
Despite the shortfall in food production this year, Laja said that the country is not going to experience famine next year but may import more to bridge the supply-demand gap if the government fails to subsidise farm production.
Input costs have surged this year, with fertiliser prices up more than 41 percent, seeds and seedlings nearly doubling, and pesticides and herbicides rising by over 20 percent.
Abiodun Olorundero, managing partner at Prasinos Farms, urged the government to develop practical and sustainable solutions to ensure food sufficiency, affordability of agricultural commodities, and long-term stability of the sector.
He noted that farm production has to be subsidised to avert the recent production lapses across value chains by farmers.
“With the way things are going, investors will cut down their investments in agriculture and probably diversify their funds elsewhere, if nothing is done to address the declining farm gate prices,” Olorundenro said.
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Charles Anudu, founding managing director of Candel Company Limited, said the declining farm-gate prices below the economic cost of production have a broader macroeconomic consequence.
“Nigerian farmers typically rely on the profits from one season to fund the next. Selling at a loss means they cannot afford the seeds, fertilisers, pesticides and labour needed for the 2026 planting season,” Anudu said.
“They need a lifeline to stay in business,” he noted, urging the government to provide a financial bridge for farmers by de-risking through a ‘harvest advance’ loan product to prevent farmers resorting to distress selling.
He stressed that the situation will deepen rural poverty, raise prices and result in a food crisis in 2026 if nothing is done to address the issue.
“This dynamic reinforces the narrative that farming is a poverty trap, discouraging youth engagement in agriculture and accelerating rural-urban migration, which strains urban infrastructure,” he added.
Farouk Rabiu-Mudi, national president of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), said farmers are currently facing rising input costs and declining farm-gate prices of produce.
“We do not want food prices to go up, but we must also ensure that farmers can sustain production,” Rabiu-Mudi said at a recent press briefing, while urging the government to subsidise inputs and tackle rising insecurity to make farming profitable for farmers.
