Food security is usually discussed in terms of how much food a country produces. But producing more food does not automatically mean that people can afford nutritious diets, farmers are earning sustainable incomes, or the agricultural system can withstand the next flood, drought or economic shock.
This is why Nigeria needs to broaden the food security conversation.
Food security, nutrition, livelihoods and climate resilience are not four separate development challenges. They are different parts of the same economic system. How we invest in one affects the others.
A farmer who loses a harvest to flooding does not only suffer a production loss. Household income declines. Loan repayment becomes difficult. The farmer has less money for the next production cycle while food supply to the market falls. Reduced supply can contribute to higher prices, and households, particularly poorer ones, may respond by buying cheaper and less nutritious food.
Climate vulnerability can therefore become an income problem, a food security problem and eventually a nutrition problem.
The reverse is equally possible.
When farmers have access to climate-resilient seeds, irrigation, finance, insurance, storage and reliable markets, productivity and income can improve. When nutritious foods are produced efficiently and reach consumers through functioning markets, healthier diets become more accessible. Stronger agricultural businesses create jobs while resilient production systems reduce vulnerability to climate shocks.
The challenge before Nigeria is therefore bigger than producing more food. We need a food system that is capable of producing nutrition, incomes, jobs and resilience simultaneously.
Food availability is not enough
Globally, malnutrition remains a significant challenge. In 2024, an estimated 150.2 million children under five were stunted while 42.8 million experienced wasting (UNICEF, WHO & World Bank, 2025).
Nigeria faces the additional challenge of affordability. Poor households can spend as much as 70 percent of their income on food while the cost of a basic food basket increased approximately fivefold between 2019 and 2024 (World Bank, 2025).
This means agricultural policy cannot focus exclusively on tonnes of maize, rice or cassava produced.
Three interventions deserve greater attention.
First, Nigeria needs significantly greater investment in nutrition-sensitive agriculture, including fruits, vegetables, legumes, eggs, fish, dairy and biofortified crops.
Second, biofortification and food fortification should be expanded through commercially sustainable value chains that connect research, seed systems, farmers, processors, retailers and consumers.
Third, nutrition financing should be viewed as investment in human capital rather than simply social expenditure. The World Bank estimates that every US$1 invested in addressing undernutrition could generate about US$23 in economic benefits (World Bank, 2024).
Healthy people are ultimately more productive people.
Climate resilience is livelihood protection
For millions of Nigerian farmers, climate change is already an economic reality.
Recent World Bank analysis indicates that partial crop losses increased from around 6 percent to more than 20 percent of plots between 2018/19 and 2023/24, with climate shocks, environmental pressures and insecurity contributing to agricultural losses (Azad, McGee & Akin-Olagunju, 2026).
This is particularly important in an economy where agriculture accounts for roughly one-quarter of GDP and more than one-third of employment.
To address these, three actions are critical.
First, accelerate climate-smart agriculture. Drought-, flood- and heat-tolerant varieties, efficient irrigation, water harvesting, soil restoration, agroforestry, climate information and renewable-energy-powered agricultural technologies should move from small pilot projects towards commercial scale.
Second, expand agricultural insurance and risk-sharing instruments. Farmers should not carry virtually the entire financial burden of climate shocks. Insurance, credit guarantees and blended-finance mechanisms can distribute risk more effectively.
Third, integrate climate information into agricultural finance. Weather information, satellite data, production records and digital farmer registries can help financial institutions to better understand agricultural risk rather than simply classifying agriculture as universally high-risk.
Agriculture must create prosperity, not merely production
Food security will remain fragile where the people producing the food remain economically insecure.
Smallholder farmers frequently face expensive inputs, inadequate storage, limited processing facilities, weak bargaining power and uncertain markets. Increasing production without addressing these constraints can leave farmers producing more without earning proportionately more.
Three shifts are necessary.
Farmers need stronger integration into organised value chains through cooperatives, aggregation systems, contract production and structured outgrower arrangements.
Nigeria also requires significantly greater investment in rural processing, storage, cold chains and logistics. These investments can reduce losses while creating employment outside primary farming.
Finally, production should increasingly be linked to markets before financing is provided. Offtake arrangements involving processors, supermarkets, exporters and institutional buyers can make agricultural enterprises more predictable and bankable.
The objective should move from simply increasing tonnes produced to increasing economic value created per tonne.
We are also losing value after production
Nigeria cannot sustainably address food shortages by concentrating exclusively on increasing farm output while significant quantities of food deteriorate between farms and consumers.
Storage deficiencies, weak cold chains, poor transportation, unreliable electricity and limited processing capacity destroy both food and economic value.
The investment response should focus on three areas: modern storage and cold-chain infrastructure; agro-processing close to major production clusters; and financing models such as warehouse receipts, equipment leasing, infrastructure funds and public-private partnerships.
Post-harvest infrastructure should increasingly be treated as an investable asset class, not merely as a government project.
The financing architecture must change
Governments and development organisations cannot finance the transformation alone.
Developing countries may require between US$310 billion and US$365 billion annually for climate adaptation by 2035 while international public adaptation finance flows were approximately US$26 billion in 2023 (UNEP, 2025).
Private capital therefore has to become part of the solution.
These three approaches can help.
Development finance institutions can use concessional finance, guarantees and first-loss capital to reduce risks sufficiently to attract commercial investors.
Project developers must also improve the quality of investment-ready agricultural projects. Investors need credible feasibility studies, financial models, governance structures, markets and clearly identified risks.
Finally, agricultural investments should increasingly measure outcomes such as farmer income, jobs created, food loss avoided, water efficiency, nutrition improvements and climate resilience.
This allows investors to see both financial returns and measurable development impact.
We need to break institutional silos
Another constraint is institutional fragmentation.
Agriculture institutions pursue production. Health institutions address nutrition. Environment agencies address climate change. Financial institutions provide capital while development organisations implement livelihood programmes.
But households experience all these issues together.
Nigeria therefore needs integrated food-system investment platforms connecting agriculture, health, environment, finance, trade, research, private businesses and civil society.
Performance measurement should also change.
Instead of reporting only hectares cultivated or farmers trained, major interventions should increasingly measure:
Productivity + Farmer Income + Jobs + Nutrition + Women’s Economic Participation + Food Loss Reduction + Climate Resilience + Private Investment Mobilised.
That provides a much clearer picture of whether an agricultural intervention has actually transformed people’s lives.
The opportunity lies at the intersection
Consider a solar-powered vegetable production and processing cluster.
Farmers receive improved seeds, irrigation and technical support. An aggregator guarantees market access. A financial institution provides appropriately structured credit. Insurance protects against defined production risks. Solar-powered cold storage reduces spoilage while a processing facility converts part of the harvest into higher-value products.
One investment can therefore increase food production, improve farmer incomes, create jobs, reduce post-harvest losses, increase access to nutritious food and strengthen climate resilience.
This is the type of integrated investment that Nigeria needs.
There are already signs of movement in this direction. In 2026, the World Bank approved a US$500 million IDA credit for Nigeria’s Sustainable Agricultural Value-Chains for Growth, AGROW, Project. The programme is expected to reach up to one million smallholder farmers while mobilising approximately US$220 million in additional private agribusiness investment (World Bank, 2026).
The broader lesson is important: public and development capital can be strategically deployed to reduce risk and build systems into which private capital can invest.
From beneficiaries to economic actors
Perhaps the greatest transformation required is in how we think about agricultural development.
Smallholder farmers should not permanently be viewed as beneficiaries. They are economic actors.
Women in agriculture are not merely vulnerable groups. They are farmers, processors, traders, entrepreneurs and investors.
Young people do not necessarily have to become only farmers to participate in agriculture. They can build careers and businesses in agritech, food processing, equipment services, logistics, cold chains, quality assurance, renewable energy and agricultural finance.
Nutrition should similarly be understood as human-capital investment while climate adaptation should be regarded as economic risk management.
Food security itself must be recognised for what it increasingly is: an issue of agriculture, health, employment, investment, climate resilience and national economic stability.
Nigeria therefore needs to move beyond asking only: How much food can we produce?
We should also ask:
- Is the food nutritious and affordable?
- Are farmers becoming more prosperous?
- Are we creating jobs and enterprises?
- Can the system withstand climate shocks?
- And can private investment participate profitably in delivering these outcomes?
When these questions are addressed together, food security stops being merely an agricultural programme.
It becomes an investment in national resilience and shared prosperity.
Dr. Fakunle Aremu is an international management consultant and investment strategist who facilitates business growth across healthcare, agribusiness, renewable energy, trade, infrastructure and manufacturing. He advises governments, investors and development partners on investment, market entry, public-private partnerships and private sector development, driving sustainable
economic growth and enterprise competitiveness.
