By Daniel Oluwatobiloba Popoola
The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari, has attributed the continued high cost of food to gaps in agro-processing and distribution, despite increased agricultural production under the President Bola Tinubu administration.
Kyari made the disclosure in an interview with ARISE NEWS on Friday, 18 September, 2026 while explaining why the impact of the government’s agricultural reforms had yet to translate fully into lower food prices for consumers.
He said farm-gate prices had fallen considerably, indicating increased production, but challenges in processing and moving food from farms to markets continued to keep consumer prices high.
“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,” Kyari said.
The Minister said the government had made considerable progress in food production, but identified processing and distribution as areas requiring further intervention.
He attributed Nigeria’s continued reliance on food imports to rapid population growth, low agricultural productivity, limited access to land, and the high cost of farm inputs and production.
Kyari said Nigeria’s population was growing by about eight to nine million people annually, making increased productivity and access to quality seeds and other inputs essential to meeting demand.
He said the government had supported farmers through subsidised inputs and seeds as part of efforts to improve productivity.
The Minister also said the government was working to reduce dependence on processed food imports through mechanisation, local processing and the Special Agro-Processing Zones (SAPZ).
According to him, the government expects food imports to decline after the 2026 wet-season harvest, noting that processed food accounts for a significant share of the increase in food imports.
He said the government had also restricted the export of raw agricultural products, including shea nuts, as part of efforts to promote local value addition.
Kyari said all eight SAPZs were expected to come on stream before the end of next year, while a second phase involving an initial 10 states was also being planned.
He explained that the SAPZ programme was designed to integrate production, aggregation, storage, processing and marketing, thereby reducing Nigeria’s dependence on processed food imports.
On food production, Kyari said improved security had allowed farmers to return to farmlands that were previously inaccessible because of 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,” he said.
He said the government and security agencies were continuing efforts to restore access to farmland in areas previously affected by insecurity.
Kyari said the 2026 agricultural production figures were expected between October and November after the completion of the wet-season harvest.
He explained that the National Agricultural Extension Research and Liaison Services, in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security and Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, traditionally provides agricultural production figures at the end of the rain-fed farming season.
He said the agency had now been mandated to provide figures for each harvest cycle to support the government’s drive towards all-year-round farming.
According to him, figures from the first dry-season harvest are expected in March, while those for the second cycle should be available in June.
Kyari projected that the 2026 harvest would exceed the bumper harvest recorded in 2025, citing improved productivity, stabilised input prices and government interventions.
He said the government had also implemented measures to ease the cost of farm inputs, following concerns raised by farmers in previous years.
“There were a lot of interventions from the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Bank of Agriculture, and the National Agricultural Development Fund,” he said.
Kyari said the National Agricultural Development Fund provided fertiliser to farmers at no cost, while the Bank of Agriculture offered a 50 per cent subsidy.
On mechanisation, he said tractors supplied under the Nigerian Agricultural Mechanisation Policy had been deployed to farms, with the government monitoring their performance.
“The tractors are on the field now, but of course, you won’t see a tractor now because it’s past land preparation. What we are tracking now is tractor performance,” he said.
Kyari said each tractor was expected to cover between 500 and 600 hectares annually, including through shared access among farmers.
He explained that the target meant 2,000 tractors could potentially cover about one million hectares each year for land preparation, if the machines achieved the required level of utilisation.
