…Why is Africa’s Most Endowed Agricultural Nation Missing from the Kampala Declaration Playbook?
When the Malabo Montpellier Panel released its comprehensive playbook on agricultural transformation in December 2025, synthesizing lessons from 70 country case studies across 22 African nations, one glaring omission stands out: Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and historically one of its agricultural powerhouses, is nowhere to be found among the success stories of food security.
This absence is particularly striking given Nigeria’s natural advantages and the Tinubu administration’s declared commitment to the sector, including a state of emergency on food security. The report’s analysis of proven interventions across six critical commitment areas of the Kampala Declaration reveals not just what Nigeria is missing, but what it could and should be achieving.
A Panel of global agricultural and policy experts has released a new playbook to support African countries as they begin implementing the Kampala Declaration on building resilient and sustainable agrifood systems from January 1, 2026.
‘Recipes for Success 2’ outlines Policy Innovations to Achieve the Kampala Declaration Goals by synthesizing lessons from 70 country case studies conducted by the Malabo Montpellier Panel, based on 16 flagship reports offering practical and replicable approaches for African governments, nonstate actors, and development partners for the third phase of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) 2026-2035.
The prescriptive playbook is built on six critical model sectors where Nigeria should lead but is not:
Sustainable Food Production, Agro-Industrialization, and Trade
The Models: Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Senegal achieved sharp productivity gains through coordinated investments in irrigation, digital advisory services, improved mechanization, and climate-smart innovations. Kenya, South Africa, and Uganda stimulated regional markets by reducing tariff and non-tariff barriers.
Nigeria’s Potential: With 84 million hectares of arable land (the largest in West Africa), diverse agro-ecological zones spanning from rainforest to savannah, and a domestic market of over 220 million people, Nigeria should naturally be a continental leader in agricultural production and processing. The country’s position as ECOWAS’s largest economy makes it ideally suited to drive intra-African trade, yet post-harvest losses remain devastatingly high estimated at 40-50% for perishables and agricultural productivity remains among the lowest in the region.
Investment and Financing for Agrifood Systems Transformation
The Models: Morocco, Seychelles, and Zambia deployed innovative financing mechanisms – revolving funds, blended finance instruments, and results-based subsidies – that expanded capital access for women, youth, and small producers.
Nigeria’s Potential: As Africa’s largest economy with a GDP exceeding $450 billion and a relatively sophisticated financial sector, Nigeria possesses the institutional capacity to pioneer innovative agricultural financing. The country’s young, tech-savvy population and growing fintech sector create ideal conditions for digital agricultural finance solutions.
The Kampala Declaration calls for allocating 10% of national budgets to agriculture. Nigeria’s allocation has consistently fallen short, rarely exceeding 2-3% in recent years. Even when funds are budgeted, disbursement rates are notoriously poor. The Central Bank’s various intervention programs – from the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme to the Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme – have been plagued by elite capture, poor targeting, and high default rates. Access to affordable agricultural credit remains a pipe dream for most smallholders, with interest rates often exceeding 20%.
Food and Nutrition Security
The Models: Malawi, Côte d’Ivoire, and Ghana demonstrated that school feeding schemes, dietary diversification incentives, biofortified crops, and strengthened safety nets can improve dietary quality, reduce food insecurity, and build human capital.
Nigeria’s Potential: With its diverse agricultural production capacity spanning grains, tubers, legumes, fruits, vegetables, and livestock, Nigeria could easily provide nutritionally diverse diets for its population. The country is the world’s largest producer of cassava and yam, a major producer of sorghum and millet, and has significant potential in rice, maize, and animal protein production.
Why Nigeria Isn’t Featured: Despite these endowments, Nigeria faces a deepening nutrition crisis. According to recent data, approximately 25 million Nigerians face acute food insecurity. Childhood stunting rates exceed 30% in many states. The percentage of Nigerians who can afford a healthy diet has declined sharply due to inflation – food inflation exceeded 40% in 2024 – and currency devaluation. President Tinubu’s declaration of a state of emergency on food security in July 2023 has yet to translate into measurable improvements in food availability or affordability for the average Nigerian household.
Inclusivity and Equitable Livelihoods
The Models: Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, and Zimbabwe expanded women’s and youth participation through secure land and resource rights, tailored financial services, mechanization access, digital tools, and innovation hubs that transformed young people from job seekers to job creators.
Nigeria’s Potential: With approximately 60% of its population under 25 years old and women constituting a significant portion of the agricultural workforce (particularly in food processing and marketing), Nigeria has an enormous opportunity to harness demographic dividends through inclusive agricultural transformation.
Why Nigeria Isn’t Featured: Gender and youth disparities in agriculture remain entrenched. Women farmers face systematic barriers in land ownership, credit access, and agricultural inputs. Despite constitutional provisions, land tenure systems – dominated by customary practices in many regions – continue to marginalize women. Youth unemployment and underemployment hover around 40%, yet agricultural policies rarely provide an enabling environment, modern technology, or value-addition opportunities that would make farming attractive to young people. Agribusiness incubation remains limited and poorly funded.
Resilient Agrifood Systems
The Models: Niger, Mali, Zambia, and Morocco deployed scalable technologies – solar irrigation, drought-tolerant seed varieties, climate-informed advisory services, early warning systems, and risk financing mechanisms. Ghana and Uganda invested in restoration and sustainable land and water management. Mozambique and Malawi leveraged aquatic resources for nutrition-sensitive food systems.
Nigeria’s Potential: Climate change poses increasing threats to Nigerian agriculture through erratic rainfall, flooding, desertification in the north, and coastal erosion in the south. Yet the country possesses significant water resources, including the Niger-Benue river system, substantial groundwater reserves, and extensive coastal and inland fisheries that remain vastly underutilized.
Why Nigeria Isn’t Featured: Nigeria’s approach to climate resilience remains largely reactive rather than anticipatory. Early warning systems exist but are poorly integrated with farmer advisory services and market information. Climate-smart agriculture initiatives remain pilot projects rather than scaled interventions. Irrigation infrastructure is woefully inadequate. The fisheries sector, which could provide affordable protein and livelihoods for millions, remains artisanal and unorganized, with massive losses due to poor storage and processing. Land degradation accelerates unchecked in many regions, with minimal investment in restoration or circular economy approaches.
Agrifood Systems Governance
The Models: Rwanda and Senegal achieved faster, more sustainable results through coherent policies, data-driven planning, accountable institutions, participatory decision-making, inter-ministerial coordination, regular performance reviews, and transparent regulatory systems leveraging digital technologies.
Nigeria’s Potential: Nigeria possesses numerous agricultural research institutions, universities, and technical expertise. Its federal structure theoretically allows policy experimentation and learning across states.
Why Nigeria Isn’t Featured: This is perhaps the most critical gap. Nigerian agricultural governance is characterized by policy instability, poor inter-ministerial coordination, weak accountability mechanisms, and limited use of data for decision-making. Agricultural policies shift with each administration or even each minister, creating uncertainty for investors and farmers alike. The multiplicity of agencies – from the Federal Ministry of Agriculture to parastatals like the Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Corporation, Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria, and numerous commodity boards – often work at cross-purposes with overlapping mandates and minimal coordination. Performance monitoring is weak, making it difficult to assess what works and what doesn’t.
The Cost of Missed Opportunities
The Kampala Declaration sets ambitious targets for 2035: a 45% increase in agricultural output, halving post-harvest losses, tripling intra-African trade, mobilizing $100 billion in investment, achieving Zero Hunger, reducing child stunting by 30%, and protecting 40% of households from shocks.
Nigeria, with its resource endowments and market size, should be a natural leader in achieving these goals. Instead, the country risks falling further behind regional peers. Ghana, with a fraction of Nigeria’s population and resources, appears in the playbook for nutrition interventions. Ethiopia, despite recent conflicts, is cited for productivity gains. Rwanda, a landlocked country with limited arable land, is highlighted for governance excellence.
What Nigeria Must Do Differently
The Malabo Montpellier Panel’s synthesis offers a clear roadmap, but Nigeria’s absence from these success stories reveals fundamental implementation failures:
First, agricultural policy must move from rhetoric to results-based implementation with measurable targets, regular monitoring, and accountability mechanisms. The state of emergency on food security cannot remain a political slogan.
Second, budget allocations must match stated priorities. The 10% budget allocation target should be non-negotiable, with transparent disbursement mechanisms and performance tracking.
Third, governance coordination must improve dramatically. Inter-ministerial committees should have real authority, clear mandates, and mechanisms for resolving conflicts between agencies.
Fourth, innovation and technology adoption must be accelerated through public-private partnerships, extension service reform, and infrastructure investment – particularly in irrigation, mechanization, and digital services.
Fifth, inclusivity must be operationalized through genuine land reforms, targeted financial services, and programs that make agriculture attractive to women and youth as entrepreneurs, not just subsistence farmers.
A Wake-Up Call
As African countries begin implementing the Kampala Declaration from January 2026, Nigeria’s absence from the playbook of proven solutions should serve as a sobering wake-up call. The Tinubu administration’s declaration of a food security emergency will ring hollow if Nigeria remains a spectator while smaller, less-endowed nations demonstrate what effective agricultural transformation looks like.
The evidence is clear: the policies work when implemented coherently, funded adequately, and monitored rigorously. Twenty-two African countries have shown the way. Nigeria, with all its advantages, has no excuse for not being among them and every reason to lead.
The question is no longer what to do. The playbook exists. The question is whether Nigeria has the political will, institutional capacity, and governance discipline to implement it.
