Agriculture sector growth slowed to 1.76 percent in 2024, hitting a five-year low in blow for Nigeria’s food security drive.

Analysis of data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed that Nigeria’s agriculture growth recorded a distorted growth pattern in the five-year period from 2020 to 2024, with last year reporting the lowest.

Agric sector growth stood at 3.42 percent in 2020, rising to 3.58 percent in 2021.

Growth in the sector dipped in 2022 to 2.05 percent but grew to 2.10 percent in 2023. In 2024, agric growth slumped to 1.74 percent.

Experts in the sector attributed the growth decline to the worsening impact of climate change, high input costs and inadequate funding for farmers.

Abiodun Olorundero, managing partner of Prasinos Farms, told BusinessDay that climate change was a big shock that affected farmers’ productivity in 2024, hurting agric growth.

“Last year, a lot of farmers suffered from climate change. There were drought and excessive rainfall that wiped out several hectares of farmlands. This affected the sector adversely,” he said.

Olorundenro noted that the slow agric growth implies that government interventions in 2024 were not effective enough to yield the required outcomes of boosting food productivity.

Read also: Agric sector growth cools to 1.8% in Q4

Jude Obi, president of the Association of Organic Agriculture Practitioners of Nigeria, said the suspension of the Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP) – an initiative that provided cheap credits for farmers in the form of inputs – negatively impacted growth in the sector last year.

“Input prices surged by over 200 percent and farmers could not get adequate funding to grow more and the ABP that provided such cheap funding was suspended,” he said.

“Cheap finance is critical in boosting food production and attaining security, but farmers did not have access to funding in 2024,” he noted.

The ABP, which provided funding subsidy for farmers, was suspended indefinitely in late 2023 on allegations of fraud and mismanagement.

“I think the obvious reason for this low growth we have seen in the last five years is insecurity,” Muda Yusuf, director and chief executive officer of the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise, said in a telephone interview Monday.

“Insecurity has been a major challenge for people in the agricultural sector, especially those in the northern part of the country. Another reason is funding. After the end of the Anchor Borrowers Programme, funding for the agric sector slowed, if not completely disappeared,” he explained.

What started as unknown gunmen charade has evolved into a major challenge, altering the country’s dream of achieving food security. Although farmers are beginning to heave a sigh of relief, the aftermath of insecurity is taking its toll on food production and agric contribution to the country.

An average of 1,356 farmers lost their lives to insecurity between 2020 and 2024, according to the research firm, SBM Intelligence.

While agric growth in Q4 2024 is the lowest in five years, its contribution to aggregate GDP in real terms also took the same trajectory.

Agric contribution to the economy fell to 25.59 percent in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2024 from 26.95, 26.84, 26.46 and 26.11 percent in the same period of 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023, respectively.

A January report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) noted that about 33.1 million Nigerians could suffer from food insecurity due to persistent economic hardship and violence in food-producing regions.

Experts warn that Nigeria’s quest for attaining food security might be a facade if issues around climate change, insecurity, and funding are not completely tackled.