Nigeria Agricultural Commodities Report 2026
An assessment of fourteen commodities: where they are grown, how much Nigeria produces, how prices have moved from the 2024 shock to the 2026 correction, and the pressures that will shape the coming season.
Executive summary
Nigeria enters the 2026/27 season with food prices falling for the first time in three years, yet with its farm economy under greater strain than at any point in that period. This report examines fourteen commodities that together account for the bulk of the country's agricultural output and non-oil agricultural exports, setting out where each is grown, how its price has evolved since 2024, and the supply shocks and policy decisions most likely to shape the next two seasons.
Food prices are now falling outright. Food prices fell 1.55% in September 2026 as local rice, maize flour, sorghum flour and palm oil became cheaper, and year-on-year food inflation edged down to 19.59% [3]. The twelve-month average rate has almost halved over the past year, from 28.37% to 15.72% [3].
Cassava, at 62.7 million tonnes, is in a deep surplus that domestic processing cannot absorb. Yam, at 61.9 million tonnes, has held its price because insecurity across the Middle Belt continues to constrain supply [15, 16]. Maize, rice, sorghum and millet trade 45–70% below their 2024 peaks. With a bag of fertiliser now worth roughly two bags of maize [17, 18], acreage is migrating towards low-input sorghum, millet and sesame.
The fall in food prices in 2026 has, in effect, been financed by farmers' balance sheets. In the absence of storage capacity, minimum prices or reliable offtake, the current surplus is likely to give way to scarcity as producers who lost money reduce planting; some cassava traders were already predicting in mid-2025 that prices would not recover until 2027–28 [23]. For investors, lenders and policymakers, the most compelling opportunities lie in processing and storage for cassava and grains, in farm-level traceability for cocoa ahead of the European Union's deforestation rules, which apply to large and medium operators from 30 December 2026 [24], and in domestic shelling and hulling capacity for cashew and sesame.
Key findings
Cassava Prices Collapse
Cassava farmgate prices in Ogun and Oyo declined by 98% between May 2024 and May 2026, falling from ₦220,000 to ₦5,000 a tonne. This makes it the most severe price correction among all commodities.
Maize Producers Below Break-Even
Maize growers in Kaduna faced a break-even price of ₦44,578 per 100kg bag in 2025, but realized only about ₦22,000. Total losses for the 2025 crop in Kaduna are estimated at ₦10.16 billion.
Food Prices Decline Overall
Month-on-month food prices fell by 1.55% in September 2026, leading to a drop in year-on-year food inflation to 19.59%. This decline was driven by cheaper local rice, maize flour, sorghum flour, and palm oil.
Significant Farm Income Forgone
An estimated ₦5 trillion in farm income was forgone in 2025 due to the 150-day duty-free import window. This policy lowered consumer prices but significantly impacted producers' revenues.
Maize Output Projected to Fall
Projected 2026/27 maize output is 10.9 million tonnes, representing a 5% decrease. Growers are reducing planted area in response to high input costs, signaling potential future supply tightening.
Ginger Prices Skyrocket
The price of dried split ginger increased by 1,200% between 2022 and 2026, from ₦1,000 to ₦13,000 per kilogram. This dramatic rise is attributed to slow supply recovery following the 2023 blight.
Cashew Losing Market Share
The price per tonne of Nigerian raw cashew delivered to Vietnam was $1,600 in May 2026, compared to $960 for Ivorian nuts. This price disparity is causing Nigerian raw cashew exports to Vietnam to fall, with a 29% year-on-year decline in May 2026.
Extensive Farmland Flooding Risk
Approximately 4.2 million hectares of farmland across 33 states and the Federal Capital Territory are exposed to flooding in the 2026 season. This poses a significant threat to agricultural production, especially riverine crops.
| Commodity | Principal producing states | Output (t/yr) | Period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cassava | Benue, Kogi, Oyo, Ogun, Cross River, Enugu, Imo, Taraba | 62.7m | 2023 [15] |
| Yam | Benue, Niger, Taraba, Nasarawa, Kogi, Enugu, Ebonyi | 61.9m | 2023 [32] |
| Maize | Kaduna, Niger, Plateau, Katsina, Kano, Borno | 11.2m | 2024/25 [5] |
| Rice (paddy) | Kebbi, Niger, Kano, Jigawa, Benue, Ebonyi | 9.2m | 2024/25 [5] |
| Sorghum | Kano, Katsina, Bauchi, Kaduna, Jigawa, Sokoto, Zamfara | 6.4m | 2024/25 [5] |
| Groundnut | Kano, Jigawa, Katsina, Niger, Bauchi, Taraba | 4.3m | Latest USDA estimate [25] |
| Millet | Sokoto, Kebbi, Katsina, Kano, Borno, Yobe | 1.7m | Latest USDA estimate [25] |
| Palm oil | Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Rivers, Imo, Delta, Edo, Abia, Ondo | 1.5m | Latest USDA estimate [25] |
| Soybean | Benue, Kaduna, Niger, Plateau, Nasarawa, Kwara | ≈1.2m | 2024 projection [33] |
| Sesame | Jigawa, Nasarawa, Gombe, Sokoto, Benue, Katsina | 450–510k | 2022–24 [26, 19] |
| Cashew | Kogi, Oyo, Enugu, Kwara, Benue, Niger | ≈350k | 2026 [28] |
| Cocoa | Ondo, Cross River, Osun, Oyo, Ogun | ≈305k | 2025/26 forecast [27] |
| Ginger | Kaduna (Kachia, Jaba, Kagarko), Nasarawa, Plateau | Below 750–800k | Pre-blight level [29] |
| Driver | Mechanism | Position in 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Naira and fuel | Depreciation in 2023–24 and successive petrol price increases raised the cost of transport and inputs | Easing, although core inflation is again rising month-on-month [3] |
| Import policy | 150-day duty waiver on maize, brown rice, wheat and cowpea (Jul–Aug 2024) [13] | Continued pressure on domestic grain prices through 2025–26 [4] |
| Harvest size | High 2024 prices prompted expanded planting, and 2025 output rose across seven staples [14] | Surplus in cassava and grains |
| Demand | Squeezed household budgets led consumers to buy less and trade down | Weak, holding prices down |
| Storage and markets | Limited storage, no minimum price and no strategic purchasing at harvest | Farmgate prices collapse at harvest [35] |
| Insecurity | Attacks across Benue, Plateau, Niger and the North West disrupt local supply [36] | Sustaining high yam prices and Benue food inflation [37] |
| Commodity | Price shock | Insecurity | Climate / floods | Import policy | Input cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cassava | High | Medium | Medium | High | Low |
| Yam | Medium | High | Medium | Low | Low |
| Maize | High | High | Medium | High | High |
| Rice | High | Medium | High | High | High |
| Sorghum / millet | Medium | High | Medium | Low | Low |
| Groundnut / cowpea | Medium | High | Medium | Medium | Medium |
| Soybean | Low | High | Medium | Medium | Medium |
| Sesame | Low | High | High | Low | Medium |
| Oil palm | Medium | Low | Medium | Low | Medium |
| Cocoa | High | Low | High | Low | High |
| Ginger | High | Medium | Low | Low | Medium |
| Cashew | High | Low | Medium | Low | Medium |
| Challenge | Nature | Implication for 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Surplus and perishability | Supply shock | Roots deteriorate within days of harvest, forcing farmers to accept distress prices |
| Limited processing offtake | Market | Starch, ethanol and flour producers lack the capacity to absorb surplus supply |
| Roads, factories and flooding | Logistics | Riverine growers in Bayelsa risk losing entire crops when floods arrive early [45] |
| Farmer indebtedness | Finance | Growers who borrowed to expand face losses that are likely to reduce future planting [38] |
| Challenge | Nature | Implication for 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Duty-free imports | Policy | Maize's inclusion in the 2024 waiver depressed domestic prices [13] |
| Fertiliser-to-grain ratio | Input cost | Around two bags of maize are needed to purchase one bag of NPK [17, 18] |
| Rural insecurity | Security | Violence in parts of the northern grain belt disrupts planting and harvesting [36] |
| No minimum price or strategic purchasing | Market | Harvest surpluses pass directly into farmgate prices [35] |
| Stakeholder | Implication | Priority action |
|---|---|---|
| Federal policymakers | Import waivers lowered prices but cost farmers an estimated ₦5 trillion in 2025 | Accompany any future waiver with minimum prices, strategic purchasing and storage investment |
| State governments | Insecurity and flooding determine local supply conditions | Fund secure farming corridors and riverine flood defences, and publish state-level price data |
| Processors and feed millers | Raw material prices are at multi-year lows | Secure cassava, maize and sorghum supply through forward contracts with producer groups |
| Banks and financiers | Many farmers are carrying debt from the 2025 price collapse | Extend warehouse-receipt and commodity-backed lending through cooperatives |
| Exporters | The EU cocoa deadline is imminent, and cashew and sesame compete on price alone | Map supplying farms and invest in shelling, hulling and quality control |
| Investors | Periods of surplus offer attractive entry points into processing | Target cassava starch and ethanol, grain storage, cashew shelling and sesame hulling |
| Development partners | Production and price data remain fragmented and inconsistent | Support the development of reliable state-level production and price series |
Production and where it grows
Two root crops dominate Nigerian agriculture by volume. Cassava and yam together exceed 120 million tonnes a year, more than all cereals combined, and supply the staple carbohydrate for most southern and Middle Belt households. Cereals and legumes are concentrated in the drier North, root crops across the North Central and the South, and tree crops such as cocoa and oil palm in the humid southern belt.
These volumes should be read as indicative orders of magnitude rather than precise measurements, since estimates of Nigerian crop output vary considerably between national and international series. 1 The relative scale of each commodity is, however, consistent across all of them.
READING THE MAPS IN THIS REPORT Each commodity profile in Part B opens with a map of Nigeria's 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory. The principal producing states are raised, shaded in deep blue and named; states that grow the crop on a smaller scale are shaded in a lighter tone; all other states appear in pale grey. 1
Prices, 2024 to 2026
Food prices rose steeply through 2024 as the depreciation of the naira, higher fuel and transport costs and rural insecurity combined to restrict supply and raise the cost of bringing food to market. By June 2024 the average price of yam was nearly four times its level a year earlier, and the price of brown beans had risen by more than 250% [34]. The turning point came with the 2025 harvest, when output of rice, maize, sorghum, millet, cowpea, yam and cassava all rose and national prices of maize, rice and sorghum fell by more than half [14].
A classic commodity cycle, amplified by policy
The movement in staple prices since 2024 follows a familiar boom-and-bust pattern, amplified in Nigeria's case by the timing of trade policy. Elevated prices in 2024 encouraged farmers to expand planting, often on borrowed money; because cassava takes twelve to eighteen months to mature, much of that additional supply reached the market in 2025–26, just as duty-free grain imports arrived and household demand weakened. The resulting collapse in prices has left many growers unable to service their loans [2, 38], and their withdrawal from the market is setting the conditions for the next shortage.
Policy and cross-cutting drivers
Five structural forces bear on every commodity covered in this report: trade policy, the cost of farm inputs, rural insecurity, flooding, and the weakness of storage and market infrastructure. Their combined effect is to make Nigerian farm incomes unusually volatile, and to transmit shocks quickly from one season to the next.
Trade policy has lowered consumer prices but weakened domestic producers
In July 2024 the Federal Government announced a 150-day suspension of duties and tariffs on imported maize, husked brown rice, wheat and cowpea, which the Nigeria Customs Service began to implement in mid-August [13]. Agricultural imports subsequently reached ₦2.22 trillion in the first half of 2025 [40], and the Rice Millers Association of Nigeria estimates that brown rice imported under the waiver cost ₦1.9 trillion in the second half of 2024 alone, with the benefits concentrated among a small number of firms [41] . The policy contributed materially to lower food inflation, but at an estimated cost to farmers of ₦5 trillion in forgone income during 2025 [4].
Fertiliser remains expensive relative to the crops it produces
A 50kg bag of NPK 15-15-15 carried a published ex-Kaduna price of ₦50,300 and sold for around ₦56,500 at retail in August 2026, while urea averaged about ₦36,600 a bag in March [17]. Supply appears adequate: PFI NPK Ltd, which supplies raw materials to the country's blending plants, reported 534,219 tonnes of NPK inputs available for the 2026 cycle, including stocks carried over from the previous year [39] . Price, rather than availability, is now the binding constraint. With a bag of maize fetching around ₦27,000 [18], a grower must sell roughly two bags of grain to buy one bag of fertiliser, and closer to two and a half at the ₦22,000 realised at the 2025 harvest [2].
Insecurity continues to remove land from production
Attacks by armed groups and recurring farmer–herder violence continue to keep farmers off their land across much of the Middle Belt and the North West, and have driven many to abandon farms in Benue and Niger [36]. The effect on local supply is pronounced: food inflation in Benue, often described as the nation's food basket, reached a five-year high in April 2025, and the state chapter of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria reported that prices of yam, rice and groundnut had doubled [37].
Flood exposure is concentrated in the river basins
The 2026 national flood outlook classifies 14,118 communities across 33 states and the Federal Capital Territory as high risk, with flooding expected to peak between July and September [8]. Around 4.2 million hectares of farmland are exposed [9], most of it riverine rice, cassava and yam land in the Niger–Benue basin. Bauchi faces a compound risk of wet-season flooding followed by dry-season drought [42].
Weak market infrastructure turns good harvests into losses
Beneath each of these pressures lies a more fundamental weakness in the way agricultural markets function. A survey by the Nigerian Economic Society found farmgate prices for key staples down by as much as 70%, with fertiliser costing more than ₦50,000 a bag and maize selling for less than ₦20,000, and characterised the situation as a breakdown in market coordination, liquidity and price transmission rather than an ordinary seasonal decline [35].
Cassava
Nigeria is the world's largest producer of cassava, harvesting 62.7 million tonnes in 2023 [15, 30]. The crop is the raw material for garri, fufu and industrial starch, and is grown in almost every southern and Middle Belt state. It is also the commodity in which the 2025–26 surplus has been most severe.
Yam
Nigeria harvested 61.9 million tonnes of yam in 2023 and has accounted for roughly 64% of all yam produced worldwide since 1961, yet recorded exports remain negligible [32]. The crop occupies a central place in diets and ceremonial life across the southern half of the country.
Maize
Maize is Nigeria's largest cereal and the principal energy ingredient in animal feed, which absorbs around 60% of national supply [49]. The Federal Government estimates national demand at 25 million tonnes a year [50], roughly twice current production, yet growers have spent the past season selling below cost.
Rice and wheat
Rice is Nigeria's second most important cereal and its most politically sensitive food. Consumption has risen by around 25% over the past decade [33], and in 2026/27 is projected to reach 9.0 million tonnes of milled rice against domestic milled output of only 5.2 million tonnes, leaving a gap of some 3.5 million tonnes to be met by imports [5]. 1
Sorghum and millet
Sorghum and millet are the drought-tolerant cereals of the Sudan–Sahel belt. They are staple foods for northern households and, in the case of sorghum, a key raw material for the brewing industry, with output of 6.4 million tonnes of sorghum in 2024/25 [5] and around 1.7 million tonnes of millet [25].
Groundnut and cowpea
Groundnut and cowpea, commonly known as beans, are the principal legumes of northern Nigeria and are usually intercropped with sorghum and millet. Groundnut supplies the oil and cake processors of Kano, while cowpea is the main source of affordable protein for a large share of households.
Soybean
Soybean is the main protein ingredient in poultry and fish feed and the raw material for much of Nigeria's vegetable oil. National output was projected at approximately 1.2 million tonnes in 2024 [33], and demand from feed millers, crushers and, increasingly, export buyers comfortably exceeds supply.
Sesame
Sesame is one of Nigeria's most valuable non-oil agricultural exports and is grown by more than half a million smallholders across the North [61]. Almost the entire crop is exported unprocessed, chiefly to China, Japan and Turkey.
Oil palm
Nigeria was once the world's leading producer of palm oil but now accounts for only about 1.9% of global output [22], importing around 450,000 tonnes a year to meet domestic demand [64]. Domestic prices are set largely by developments in Indonesia and Malaysia.
Cocoa
Cocoa is Nigeria's largest non-oil agricultural export. Output reached an estimated 315,000 tonnes in 2022/23, with 350,000 tonnes forecast for 2023/24 [66], but unfavourable weather is expected to reduce the 2025/26 crop by around 11%, from 344,000 to 305,000 tonnes [27]. The sector is examined in depth in SysIN's Nigeria Cocoa Trade Report [24].
Ginger
Before 2023 Nigeria produced between 750,000 and 800,000 tonnes of ginger a year and ranked among the world's leading producers. A blight outbreak in the 2023 wet season destroyed more than 90% of the harvest in Kaduna's principal growing communities, causing losses estimated at ₦12 billion [29].
Cashew
Nigeria produces around 350,000 tonnes of raw cashew nuts a year, worth approximately ₦473 billion at ₦1.35 million a tonne [28]. 1 Almost the entire crop is shipped unprocessed to Vietnam and India for shelling.
Regional summary
Outlook and what to watch
Our central expectation is that grain and cassava prices will recover during 2027 as reduced planting follows the losses of 2025–26. This is consistent with the projected decline in maize and rice output for 2026/27 and the expected increase in rice imports [5], and with warnings that food inflation could rise again once the current surplus is cleared [45]. The outlook nonetheless differs materially by commodity.
Implications for stakeholders
The developments described in this report carry different implications for each group with an interest in Nigerian agriculture. The table below sets out, for each, the most significant implication and the action we consider most likely to create or protect value over the coming season.
Methodology and data notes
Production. Volumes for cassava and yam are based on FAOSTAT; those for maize, rice, sorghum and wheat on the USDA Grain and Feed Annual of March 2026; those for groundnut, millet and palm products on USDA production data; and those for cocoa on ICCO data and industry forecasts. Volumes for cashew, sesame and ginger draw on industry estimates. Rice is reported as paddy or milled, as indicated.
Frequently asked questions
Why have Nigerian food prices fallen in 2026?
Food prices fell in 2026 due to several factors: a 150-day duty-free import window in July 2024, a strong harvest across seven staples in 2025, and weakened household demand caused by squeezed budgets as supply peaked.
How did the 2024 duty-free import window impact farmers?
The 2024 duty-free import window significantly lowered the landed cost of grain, which contributed to lower food inflation but came at an estimated cost of ₦5 trillion in forgone income for Nigerian farmers during 2025.
What is the outlook for maize and rice production in 2026/27?
Maize output is projected to fall by about 5% to 10.9 million tonnes in 2026/27, and paddy rice output by a similar margin to 8.3 million tonnes. This decline is due to farmers reducing planted area in response to high input costs and insecurity.
Why are ginger prices exceptionally high compared to other commodities?
Ginger prices have surged by 1,200% since 2022 because a severe blight outbreak in 2023 destroyed over 90% of the harvest in Kaduna, leading to a prolonged supply shortage. Recovery is slow due to the scarcity of disease-free seed.
What challenges does the Nigerian cocoa sector face regarding EU regulations?
The Nigerian cocoa sector faces a significant challenge with the EU's deforestation rules, which apply to large and medium operators from 30 December 2026. Industry experts estimate that less than half of national output may meet the traceability requirements, risking market access to the EU, which buys about half of Nigeria's cocoa bean exports.