Nigeria’s nutrition challenge has never been just about producing more food, but about ensuring access to healthy, resilient and nutrient-rich food systems.
Today, as climate change disrupts agricultural production, supply chains, and household diets, the stakes have never been higher. Yet, within this challenge lies a powerful opportunity: which is investing in climate-resilient food systems. If appropriately done, Nigeria can secure its nutrition future, boost productivity, protect livelihoods, and emerge as a leader in sustainable innovation across Africa.
1. Why climate resilience matters for nutrition
Agriculture remains the backbone of Nigeria’s food and nutrition security. It employs about 70% of the workforce and contributes roughly 25% to the nation’s GDP (Frontiers, 2024). Yet, this critical sector is increasingly vulnerable to climate-related shocks, from droughts and floods to erratic rainfall and heat stress. These challenges are not only undermining yields and raising price volatility but are also directly threatening food availability, access, and utilization.
For nutrition, the connection is unmistakable: lower yields mean less food diversity on the plate, fewer fresh foods, and reduced affordability. Extreme weather events disrupt diets, pushing more households especially the most vulnerable into the grip of undernutrition.
Across Nigeria, climate volatility has already led to shrinking harvests, surging food prices, and a rise in hidden hunger which is a silent crisis of micronutrient deficiencies that erodes health and productivity (HarvestPlus, 2024).
This is why any credible effort to end malnutrition must go beyond emergency food aid or fortification alone. It must focus on building climate resilience into the entire food system which is from seed to soil to plate.
2. What climate-resilient food systems look like
Resilience, in this context, means building food systems that can adapt, mitigate, and transform in response to a changing climate. It is about creating systems that not only survive shocks but also sustain nutrition and livelihoods. Some of the key features of a climate-resilient food system include:
- Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA): These are farming techniques that simultaneously improve productivity, enhance adaptation, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In Nigeria, a recent study found that 87% of farmers in selected states have adopted at least one climate-smart practice (BioMed Central, 2023).
- Diversified Cropping and Nutrition-Rich Diets: Moving beyond traditional monocultures to include nutrient-dense and climate-adapted crops such as drought-tolerant millets and biofortified varieties builds both resilience and better nutrition.
- Robust Input Systems and Seed Access: Farmers need consistent access to improved seeds, resilient crop varieties, quality agro-inputs, irrigation infrastructure, and water-efficient technologies to stay productive under changing conditions.
- Efficient Value Chains and Supply Systems: Strengthening processing, storage, and market linkages including cold-chain systems in hot regions helps to minimize post-harvest losses and improve food availability year-round.
- Enabling Environment and Policy Support: Policies that promote soil health, integrated water management, adaptation finance, extension services, and climate-risk monitoring are essential. Notably, Nigeria recently joined CGIAR partners in launching a national soil-health hub to support long-term food security (CGIAR, 2024).
- Nutrition Integrated into Climate Policies: HarvestPlus and the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and other partners emphasize that climate adaptation efforts must intentionally integrate nutrition outcomes to ensure that people’s diets remain diverse and healthy even amid climate stress (GAIN, 2024).
3. Local innovations & good practice in Nigeria
a) Climate- and nutrition-smart crops
Across Nigeria, new initiatives are scaling up crops that are both climate-adapted and nutrient-enriched which is a powerful combination for tackling hunger and resilience together. Programs led by HarvestPlus and partners are promoting biofortified varieties that withstand climatic shocks, improve yield stability, and address hidden hunger caused by micronutrient deficiencies (HarvestPlus, 2024). These crops such as vitamin A maize, vitamin A cassava, orange fleshed sweet potatoes, iron pearl millet, and zinc rice are helping farmers to produce food that nourishes both people and the planet.
b) Soil health and fertilizer stewardship
Every resilient harvest begins with healthy soil. Recognizing this, Nigeria has joined a regional soil health hub established under the CGIAR initiative to improve soil fertility management and promote sustainable fertilizer use across West Africa (CGIAR, 2024). By prioritizing soil restoration, organic matter management, and balanced fertilization, the country is laying the groundwork for sustained productivity and better nutrition outcomes.
c) Extension and community empowerment
Building resilience starts in communities. Programs spearheaded by Helen Keller International are training extension agents and supporting homestead gardens that use climate-friendly practices and improved crop varieties (Nigeria Health Watch, 2024). These initiatives empower women and families to grow their own nutrient-rich foods, diversify diets, and strengthen local food security
4. Adoption challenges and enabling factors
Even the most promising climate-resilient practices will not achieve scale unless key adoption barriers are addressed. In Nigeria, several factors continue to shape whether farmers embrace or abandon these innovations:
- Information and Extension Access: Farmers with greater exposure to agricultural extension services and climate information are far more likely to adopt climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices. Access to training, demonstrations, and farmer-to-farmer learning can make all the difference (Kenan Climate Leaders, 2023).
- Finance and Input Access: Credit constraints remain one of the biggest barriers. Without affordable finance, farmers struggle to invest in improved seeds, irrigation systems, or water-efficient technologies essential for adaptation (Kenan Climate Leaders, 2023).
- Land Tenure and Security: Farmers with secure land rights are more likely to adopt long-term resilient practices, such as soil conservation, agroforestry, or crop diversification (Kenan Climate Leaders, 2023). Strengthening land tenure policies can therefore accelerate adoption.
- Markets and Value Chain Linkages: Without reliable markets for climate-adapted or nutrient-rich crops, farmers face weak incentives. Building stable value chains that connect producers to buyers especially for biofortified and resilient crops is crucial for sustainability.
- Policy and Institutional Environment: Gaps in coordination among the agriculture, nutrition, and climate sectors often slow progress. A coherent policy framework and strong institutional alignment are needed to scale resilience initiatives effectively.
- Climate Awareness and Behaviour Change: Finally, awareness matters. The more farmers, households, and communities understand the link between climate risks and nutrition outcomes, the more likely they are to adopt adaptive and sustainable practices.
5. What this means for business, policy and development
- For businesses and investors
The transition to climate-resilient food systems is not just a moral imperative, it is a market opportunity. Forward-thinking investors and agribusinesses can lead the charge by driving innovation, efficiency, and inclusion across the value chain:
- Agri-Tech and Input Solutions: Growing opportunities exist in seed development, bio-inputs, irrigation systems, and precision agriculture that support resilient and high-yield crops.
- Processing and Storage: The demand for value chains that handle climate-adapted and nutrient-rich crops is rising. Investments in post-harvest infrastructure such as cold storage facilities and solar-powered drying or milling units can reduce losses and improve profitability.
- Nutrition-Driven Food Products: As consumers become more health-conscious, the market for climate-smart, nutrient-dense, and biofortified foods continues to expand thus, creating space for SMEs and food manufacturers to innovate.
- For policymakers
To build a truly resilient food and nutrition ecosystem, policy coherence and institutional commitment are critical. Governments can create an enabling environment by:
- Aligning agricultural, climate, food, and nutrition policies to deliver integrated, resilience-focused outcomes.
- Allocating budgets and institutional support toward soil health initiatives, nutrient-enriched climate-smart agriculture, and strengthened extension systems.
- Using public procurement and feeding programmes (e.g., school feeding, emergency food aid) as anchor markets for climate-adapted and nutrition-rich crops.
- For development partners and academia
Development actors and researchers play a pivotal role in ensuring evidence-based, scalable, and inclusive solutions. Their focus should be to:
- Co-finance de-risking mechanisms that encourage smallholder farmers to adopt climate-smart agriculture (CSA) linked to nutrition outcomes.
- Generate and share evidence on what works in the Nigerian context by integrating nutrition metrics into climate and agriculture programmes.
- Strengthen data systems, monitoring, and evaluation frameworks across climate, agriculture, and nutrition sectors to inform decision-making and accountability.
6. Practical steps for immediate action
To move from commitment to measurable change, Nigeria must translate ideas into coordinated, community-level actions. The following steps can guide policymakers, businesses, and development partners toward that goal:
- Map Climate–Nutrition Risk Zones: Identify communities that face the dual challenge of climate stress and malnutrition to better target interventions and investments.
- Pilot and Scale Resilient Nutrition Models: Combine climate-smart agriculture, nutrition education, and market linkages in pilot zones, then scale what works nationally.
- Strengthen Value Chains: Invest in storage, transport, and logistics infrastructure for climate-adapted, nutrition-rich crops to cut post-harvest losses and stabilize food supply.
- Build a Resilience–Nutrition Pipeline: Train extension workers, mobilize women and youth, and expand access to microfinance and agribusiness opportunities to empower communities from the ground up.
- Leverage Governments as Anchor Buyers: Use public procurement programs such as school feeding and primary health centre food supply to create sustained demand for climate-resilient, nutritious foods.
- Monitor, Learn, and Adapt: Establish clear metrics for climate–nutrition performance and continuously adapt interventions as conditions and evidence evolve.
The road ahead to building a nourished and resilient Nigeria
As Nigeria confronts the climate realities of the 21st century, the story of its food systems and nutrition must evolve beyond one of vulnerability. It should become a story of innovation, resilience, and leadership.
By weaving together climate-smart practices, nutrient-rich crops, strong value chains, and inclusive policies, we are not just addressing today’s hunger, we are laying the foundation for a thriving and nourished tomorrow.
The time to act is now. Every investment, every policy, and every community-led effort counts. The future of nutrition in Nigeria lies in building food systems that are resilient to climate shocks, rich in nutrition, and powerful in impact. This is a system that can feed both people and progress.
Together, we can transform Nigeria’s food future with one seed, one policy, and one community at a time.
Dr Aremu Fakunle is a Senior Agribusiness and Public Policy Expert based in Abuja. He can be reached via fakunle2014@gmail.com
