Over 2,100 grain farmers in Kaduna State have appealed to the Federal Government for urgent financial intervention after recording losses estimated at N10.16 billion during the 2025 farming season. The farmers, represented by counsel Ehizogie Fidelis Imadojemu, detailed their plight in a formal petition addressed to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, the Minister of Agriculture, and the Central Bank of Nigeria.
The crisis stems from a volatile combination of skyrocketing production costs and a dramatic crash in market prices. Farmers reported that the cost of cultivating a single hectare of maize doubled in 2025, rising from N1 million to over N2 million.
This was driven primarily by the high cost of inputs, with NPK fertilizer reaching N60,000 per bag and Urea hitting N50,000. Despite a healthy yield of 45 bags per hectare, the market price for a 100kg bag of maize plummeted to N22,000—less than half of the N44,578 required just to break even.
The petition warns that without a government bailout in the form of free or heavily subsidized inputs for the 2026 season, thousands of farmers in the North may be forced to abandon their fields. Such a mass exit from the sector would severely undermine President Bola Tinubu’s national food security agenda.
To facilitate the recovery, the farmers have proposed a “reimbursement in kind” model, where they would pay back the value of government-provided inputs with maize at the end of the 2026 harvest.
As preparations for the next planting cycle loom, the farmers are requesting an emergency meeting with federal officials to finalize a support framework. They argue that stabilizing grain production now is essential not only for food availability but also for maintaining economic and social stability in rural communities across the country.
