Reported by Ariajegbe Sylvia Esezobor
Nigeria is quietly hemorrhaging $2.3 billion every single year. Not through oil theft, not through pipeline vandalism, and not through the kind of dramatic corruption scandals that dominate headlines. This loss is happening in the country’s farms, fields, and food markets, and it has a simple, uncomfortable cause: women farmers are being held back.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations delivered the stark assessment in Abuja this week, revealing that the gender gap in agricultural productivity costs Nigeria approximately $2.3 billion annually, equivalent to about two per cent of the country’s entire Gross Domestic Product. The figure was disclosed at a high-level meeting and panel discussion marking the 2026 International Year of the Woman Farmer, held at the United Nations House under the theme “Advancing Women’s Leadership and Economic Power in Nigeria’s Agrifood System”. The event brought together government officials, development partners, financial institutions, private-sector operators, and women farmers themselves, all grappling with a paradox at the heart of Nigeria’s food system.
Women are not marginal players in Nigerian agriculture. They are the backbone. According to FAO data presented at the event, women contribute an estimated 37 per cent of labour in crop production alone. Across the wider agrifood system, they work as farmers, livestock keepers, fishers, processors, traders, and entrepreneurs. More than 70 per cent of rural households depend on agriculture for all or part of their income and food security, and agriculture itself contributes between 22 and 25 per cent of Nigeria’s GDP. Yet the women who sustain this system remain locked out of the resources that would allow them to thrive.
The problem is not ability. It is access. Jimmy Owani, the Officer-in-Charge of the FAO Representation in Nigeria and ECOWAS, made the point plainly. Female-managed farms record lower productivity, he said, “not because of differences in ability, but because of unequal access to resources and opportunities”. Women in Nigeria face persistent barriers when it comes to securing land, obtaining finance, accessing agricultural extension services, adopting improved technologies, and reaching profitable markets. They are concentrated at the lower-value end of agricultural value chains, while control over productive assets and major commercial decisions remains disproportionately outside their reach. The cost of this exclusion is not abstract. It is measured in billions of dollars and in lost opportunities for a country already battling food inflation, unemployment, rural poverty, and climate-related shocks to agricultural production.
The FAO’s warning carries global weight. Women constitute approximately 41 per cent of the agrifood workforce worldwide, yet they face the same structural inequalities that plague Nigerian women farmers. The FAO estimates that closing gender gaps in agricultural productivity and wages globally could add nearly $1 trillion to the world economy and reduce food insecurity for millions of people. In Nigeria, the stakes are particularly high. With agriculture supporting the livelihoods of millions and rural households depending on it for survival, unlocking the productive potential of women farmers is not a matter of social welfare. It is an economic imperative.
The World Food Programme offered a glimpse of what is possible when women are deliberately included. Edouard Thiam, the WFP representative, said the organisation had supported 128,000 women across northern Nigeria over the past five years, providing seeds, fertiliser, equipment, storage facilities, irrigation, market linkages, and community resilience hubs. More than 70 per cent of the jobs created through WFP activities went to young women, and successful harvests generated economic activity beyond the farm, benefiting traders, transporters, and processors. The message was clear: invest in women, and the returns ripple outward.
The International Fund for Agricultural Development has similarly reached at least 96,827 women through three programmes in Nigeria: the Value Chain Development Programme, the Livelihood Improvement Family Enterprises for Niger Delta, and the Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones initiative. Under these programmes, thousands of women have received training in crop production technologies, accessed advisory services, and gained financial inclusion through savings, credit, and insurance. Chioma Adiele-Okpara, the Country Programme Coordinator representing IFAD’s country director, put it bluntly: “We must invest in women’s productive capacity, their enterprises, their organisations, their innovations and their leadership. We must ensure that women are not simply included in agricultural programmes but are positioned as equal partners and decision-makers”.
The FAO’s call to action was equally direct. Owani urged stakeholders to move beyond rhetoric and commit to removing the constraints facing women farmers. “When women farmers succeed, families prosper,” he said. “When women-led businesses grow, rural economies flourish. When women lead, communities become stronger. And when women are empowered across agrifood systems, Nigeria moves closer to achieving food security, economic prosperity and sustainable development for all”. The words are stirring, but the gap between rhetoric and reality remains vast. The $2.3 billion annual loss is not a projection or a hypothetical. It is money already gone, year after year, because Nigeria has failed to recognise that its women farmers are not a problem to be managed but an economic force to be unleashed.
The International Year of the Woman Farmer, declared by the UN General Assembly, was designed to do more than celebrate. It was intended to accelerate efforts to remove the barriers limiting women’s participation in agrifood systems. In Nigeria, that acceleration cannot come soon enough. The country faces mounting pressure to feed a growing population, stabilise food prices, create jobs, and build resilience against climate shocks. Every year that women farmers are denied equal access to land, finance, technology, and markets is another year of squandered potential. The $2.3 billion figure is not just a statistic. It is a bill Nigeria pays for inequality, and it is a bill that the country can no longer afford.
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