By Emmanuel Enebeli
ABUJA/Nigeria: The Healthy Real Initiative for Valued Entrepreneurship (THRIVE) and other key stakeholders have called for urgent and far-reaching reforms in Nigeria’s agriculture budget to address worsening food insecurity, widespread poverty, and systemic underinvestment in the sector. Their demands were made during the National Consultative Meeting on the 2026 Agriculture Budget, held from July 15 to 17, 2025, in Lagos.
The high-level forum, which drew 139 participants, was convened by the Federal Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, ActionAid Nigeria, GIZ AgSys Nigeria, the Community of Agricultural Non-State Actors (COANSA), the ECOWAS Commission, and THRIVE. It brought together representatives of ministries, the National Assembly, civil society, academia, development partners, farmers’ groups, and the media.
Participants expressed grave concern that the Federal Government’s 2025 allocation to agriculture stood at only 1.2% of the total national budget—far below the 10% minimum prescribed by the Maputo and Malabo Declarations. This chronic underfunding, they warned, has contributed to the looming threat of food and nutrition insecurity for over 30.6 million Nigerians in 2025, driven by climate shocks, insecurity, and poor policy execution.
Stakeholders decried the impact of rampant post-harvest losses of up to 50%, rising costs of inputs, pest invasions, degraded soil conditions, and insecurity in major food-producing zones, all of which have worsened Nigeria’s food supply challenges. They also criticized weak budget execution, late fund releases, and the exclusion of women, youth, and persons with disabilities from both policy and programme benefits.
Among the key recommendations were a call to increase the agriculture budget to a minimum of 10%, ensure timely release and full utilization of allocated funds, and dedicate 35% of all agricultural spending to women, youth, and persons with disabilities. The forum proposed the introduction of a digital, citizen-led budget tracking platform to ensure transparency and accountability in public agricultural spending.
In addition, participants advocated for the promotion of climate-resilient agriculture, expansion of extension services, revival of River Basin Development Authorities, investment in rural infrastructure, and establishment of a climate emergency fund for disaster-hit communities. They also pushed for the amendment of existing laws to allow unutilized funds in the agricultural sector to be redirected into the National Agricultural Development Fund (NADF).
To improve farmer security and productivity, stakeholders proposed hybrid pasture development to reduce herder-farmer conflicts and adoption of agri-preneurship models backed by innovative financing and public-private partnerships. The meeting further recommended the creation of separate budget cycles for the agricultural sector to align with planting seasons.
THRIVE and its partners emphasized the importance of leveraging research outputs for policy and practice, boosting support for mechanization targeted at women and youth, and ensuring decentralized budget planning for state-level implementation. “We are calling on government to walk the talk by investing in agriculture as a tool for national development, job creation, and food sovereignty,” the final communiqué stated.
In a bold move, the stakeholders developed a Shadow Agriculture Budget to guide advocacy engagements with the Presidency, the National Assembly, and the Federal Ministry of Finance. This effort, they said, would serve as a strategic document for monitoring policy implementation across federal and state levels.
The Ministers of Budget and Economic Planning and Agriculture and Food Security, as well as ActionAid Nigeria and several lawmakers, pledged to advance the outcomes of the meeting and secure stronger political will for agriculture in the 2026 fiscal cycle.
The THRIVE-backed consultative process concluded with renewed calls for the Nigerian government to prioritize agriculture not just in rhetoric but through visible actions and sustained investments. The event was endorsed by over 70 ministries, departments, agencies, farmer associations, and civil society organizations across the country.
