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The Federal Government has recorded significant improvement in food production under President Bola Tinubu’s administration, but Agriculture and Food Security Minister Abubakar Kyari says processing and distribution gaps are still keeping food prices high.
Speaking during an interview with ARISE NEWS on Friday, Kyari said the impact of agricultural reforms was already evident in lower farm-gate prices, while the bigger challenge was moving food efficiently from farms to consumers.
“Let’s go down memory lane and think about the figures in 2023 and 2024. When you look at those and compare them with what the reforms of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration have done, we are on the right track,” he said.
“However, even if you look at the NBS figures, you would see that agro-processing has not come down, but production has come down. Which means at the farm gate, prices have come down considerably. So, these are other gaps that need to be looked at. But we have tackled the production of food, and we have seen considerable success in that regard.”
Kyari attributed Nigeria’s continued dependence on food imports to rapid population growth, low agricultural productivity, limited access to land and high input costs. He said the government was addressing productivity through improved seeds and subsidised inputs for farmers.
On food processing, he said the government was promoting mechanisation, local value addition and the Special Agro-Processing Zones (SAPZ) to reduce reliance on processed food imports. “I’m sure by the time you see the harvest of the wet season harvest figures, you will see a considerable reduction in food imports,” he said.
Kyari said all eight SAPZ projects were expected to come on stream before the end of 2027, with a second phase planned across about 10 states. He said the zones would integrate production, aggregation, storage, processing and marketing.
He also attributed recent increases in agricultural output partly to improved access to farmland previously affected by insecurity. “A lot of our farmlands that were hitherto not accessible in 2023 have now been accessed. In 2024, there was a massive bumper harvest, and in 2025, even more than 2024. We are waiting for the 2026 figures to come out.”
The minister said the 2026 agricultural production figures were expected between October and November, while the government planned to begin publishing harvest data for different production cycles to support its push for year-round farming.
Kyari projected that the 2026 harvest would exceed the 2025 bumper harvest, citing improved productivity, stabilised input prices and government interventions.
“Actually, much more than that of 2025,” he said, adding that the National Agricultural Development Fund had supplied fertiliser at no cost to farmers while the Bank of Agriculture provided a 50 per cent subsidy.
