Abubakar Kyari: Nigeria Can’t Afford Fragmented Agriculture Policies

• Seeks coordinated budgets, investment, production among states

• Declares early procurement yielded N61.58bn in fertiliser savings

James Emejo in Abuja

Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, yesterday, said the federal government was working to end the country’s fragmented approach to agriculture with a state-specialisation model in which public spending, private investment, and infrastructure were aligned with the comparative advantages of different parts of the country.

Kyari spoke at the Community of Practice meeting on the implementation of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Kampala Declaration in Maiduguri.

He said Nigeria could no longer afford an agricultural system in which every state attempted to produce everything, regardless of its natural-resource endowment, infrastructure or market potential.

He said the shift was critical to changing agriculture from a predominantly production-focused activity into a more productive agrifood economy capable of generating investment, jobs, rural incomes, and affordable food at scale.

Kyari said the federal and state governments must align policies, budgets, data, and investments to create a coherent national agrifood system, warning that policy fragmentation and duplication can undermine the country’s food-security ambitions.

According to him, the 10-year National Agrifood System Strategy and Action Plan provides the framework for assigning clearer responsibilities, timelines, and accountability, while aligning national and state budgets around agreed priorities.

Kyari said the strategy also incorporated the CAADP Biennial Review indicators into national planning, budgeting, and reporting, providing a basis for measuring what works, what it costs, and whether successful interventions can be scaled.

He said the approach was particularly important under the Kampala CAADP framework for 2026–2035, which expanded the focus beyond farm production to investment and finance, food and nutrition security, trade, inclusion, resilience and governance.

He said, “Our task is to build on those comparative advantages with adaptable technologies, infrastructure and market linkages, rather than expect every state to produce everything.”

The minister stated that the consequences went beyond food availability, stating that Nigeria’s agricultural choices would increasingly affect regional markets, Africa’s wider agrifood transformation, and the country’s position in the global food economy.

In a statement by the ministry’s Head, Department of Information, Ezeaja Ikemefuna, Kyari also disclosed that early procurement under the Presidential Fertiliser Initiative had generated N61.58 billion in savings and helped secure supplies for the 2026 farming season.

He said the country was on course to deliver a 1.1 million-metric-tonne fertiliser programme this year, adding that input security remains critical to sustaining gains in agricultural production and containing food costs.

He added that government was also attempting to tackle low mechanisation that was one of the sector’s most persistent productivity constraints.

According to him, the National Agricultural Mechanisation Policy and National Agricultural Mechanisation Investment Strategy unveiled in August were designed to move the country away from fragmented equipment interventions towards a sustainable mechanisation ecosystem.

A proposed mega tractor assembly plant, he said, would have the capacity to produce between 2,000 and 4,000 tractors annually, potentially strengthening domestic access to machinery while reducing dependence on imported equipment.

Kyari identified irrigation, quality seeds, agricultural research, extension, rural infrastructure, finance, and post-harvest management as essential components of the production-to-market chain.

He said the Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones were intended to connect production areas with processors and markets, thereby helping Nigeria capture more value from agricultural output rather than exporting or consuming commodities with limited processing.

The minister said the federal government had also recorded reductions of about 50 per cent in the prices of some essential food commodities, alongside expanded input delivery, rural infrastructure investments, and support for smallholder farmers.

However, he stressed that the immediate task was to sustain and deepen those gains.

Kyari urged states to leave the meeting with concrete action plans covering rural infrastructure, extension, credit, quality inputs, labour-saving technologies, post-harvest loss reduction and climate-resilient agriculture.

He also called for stronger participation of women and young people across agricultural value chains and better conditions for private capital and development finance to enter the sector.