Nigeria backed farmers with subsidies. Where is the cheaper food?

Imagine a country celebrating a bumper harvest while millions of its citizens cannot afford three decent meals a day. It is like a bakery boasting about record-breaking production while customers stand outside unable to afford a loaf. Nigeria’s food-security challenge increasingly resembles that contradiction: producing more food is one thing; making it accessible and affordable is another. The scale of that challenge extends beyond rising grocery bills.

In the 2026 Global Hunger Index (GHI), the country ranked 117th out of 122 countries, with a score of 34.3, classified as serious. Up from 28.2 in 2018, the score signals a deterioration in measured hunger and undernutrition. The index combines four indicators: undernourishment, child wasting, child stunting and under-five mortality. A score below 5 falls within the low-hunger category. Against this backdrop, the Federal Government’s claim that its agricultural support scheme has generated N2.31 trillion worth of produce raises a critical question: if public support is helping farmers grow more food, why has that not translated into a demonstrable improvement in food security?

In February 2026, the government reported that the National Agricultural Growth Scheme and Agro-Pocket (NAGS-AP) had generated 2.54 million metric tonnes of produce, valued at N2.31 trillion, across four farming seasons. The programme covered crops including wheat, rice, maize, soybean, millet and cassava. The announcement came as officials reviewed its implementation framework and considered the next phase of agricultural support. The production figure is substantial, but it is not, by itself, proof of success. The estimated market value of harvested produce is neither the programme’s fiscal return nor a measure of additional output attributable to the intervention. Without a baseline, crop-specific results and a credible comparison with what would have happened without the subsidy, it is difficult to establish how much production NAGS-AP actually generated.

More importantly, higher output does not automatically mean better food security. While larger harvests can improve availability, access depends on household purchasing power and market prices. Nutritional outcomes also depend on dietary quality, while stability requires reliable access to food despite seasonal, economic and security shocks. The programme’s effectiveness must therefore be assessed against evidence of timely input delivery, changes in crop yields and production costs, farmers’ incomes, and the transmission of farm-gate prices through wholesale and retail markets. These indicators would help establish whether public support has increased productivity, improved rural livelihoods and made food more affordable. Ultimately, the test is not simply how much produce the government says NAGS-AP generated, but how much additional output it created, who benefited and whether those gains improved Nigerians’ access to food. Without that evidence, the reported production value demonstrates the scale of the programme’s claimed output, not proof that it has reduced hunger.

The promise behind Agro-Pocket

NAGS-AP was designed to ease one of Nigerian agriculture’s persistent constraints: smallholder farmers’ limited access to quality seeds, fertiliser and agrochemicals at affordable prices and at the right time. Through a digital delivery system and participating agro-dealers, the programme aims to make subsidised inputs available to verified farmers. Its economic logic is sound. Better inputs can raise yields, reduce production costs per unit and increase the supply of staple crops. If productivity gains are sustained, farmers can earn more while a larger market supply can moderate prices.

But the chain from subsidy to cheaper food is not automatic. Inputs delivered after planting deadlines may arrive too late to improve yields. Farmers who cannot afford their required contribution may struggle to participate. Even a larger harvest may fail to translate into lower retail prices if transport, storage, processing and distribution remain expensive.

The test is therefore not simply whether inputs were distributed or crops harvested. It is whether the intervention improved productivity beyond what would otherwise have occurred, and whether the benefits reached farmers and consumers.

Where implementation meets reality

An independent assessment of the programme’s wheat component points to weaknesses that could limit those gains. In June 2026, ActionAid Nigeria presented findings from a community scorecard assessment conducted by TSD Consult on the 2023–2024 and 2024–2025 dry-season wheat interventions. The assessment identified delayed input delivery, limited access to finance and coordination problems as constraints on implementation. The reported findings also raised concerns about the programme’s 50 per cent subsidy model and the financing burden on smallholder farmers. Where farmers must fund a substantial share of input costs themselves, the subsidy may be least accessible to those with the greatest liquidity constraints.

The assessment covered the wheat intervention, not every crop or state under NAGS-AP. Its findings should therefore not be generalised to the entire programme. They nevertheless expose a critical design question: can an agricultural support scheme reach the farmers who need it most, at the point when the inputs can make the greatest difference? The wheat programme was intended to raise average yields from about 1.1 tonnes per hectare to 3.5 tonnes, according to figures presented by the assessment team. That is a target, not evidence that the target has been achieved. Published results should show actual yields by season and location, alongside the number of participating farmers and the cost of delivering the intervention.

More harvests do not automatically mean cheaper food

The consumer test remains unresolved. Nigeria’s annual food inflation was 19.59 per cent in September 2026, slightly above the 19.57 per cent recorded in August, although below the 20.16 per cent recorded a year earlier. These figures do not establish that NAGS-AP has failed. Food prices respond to insecurity, weather, fuel and transport costs, exchange-rate movements, storage losses and seasonal supply. Nor does high food inflation mean prices are necessarily rising faster in every market or for every commodity. But the data make it harder for policymakers to rely on aggregate production claims as evidence that food has become more affordable. The government needs to show what happened to the prices of the specific commodities supported by the scheme, whether those prices fell in real terms and whether markets served by participating farmers performed differently from comparable areas.

A rise in output can coexist with rising retail prices if costs elsewhere in the supply chain absorb the gains. Farmers may produce more without earning substantially more, while consumers continue to pay heavily for transport, milling, storage and distribution. Without evidence along that chain, the relationship between the programme and food affordability remains an assertion rather than a demonstrated result.

What the next phase must prove

The Federal Government should publish a season-by-season performance record that connects public spending to measurable outcomes. This should include the number of verified farmers who received inputs before planting, the quantities delivered, hectares cultivated, actual yields and output by crop and state, and the programme’s expenditure per beneficiary. It should also disclose changes in farmers’ production costs and net incomes, alongside farm-gate, wholesale and retail prices for supported commodities. Where possible, these results should be compared with credible pre-programme baselines and similar non-beneficiary farms or areas. Such comparisons would help separate the scheme’s contribution from favourable weather, changes in cultivated land and other influences on production.

The same scrutiny should apply to the reported N2.31 trillion valuation. Officials should explain the prices used to value the harvest, how the output was verified and how much represented additional production rather than food that would have been grown anyway. The government is already looking beyond the initial phase. The official Agro-Pocket portal describes NAGS 2.0, approved in February 2026, as a four-year, $200 million programme intended to extend the approach across priority crops. That makes transparent measurement more urgent, not less.

Scaling a programme before publishing comparable evidence of its costs and results risks expanding weaknesses alongside its reach.

Nigeria needs higher agricultural productivity, more viable farm incomes and a food supply chain that works at lower cost. NAGS-AP may contribute to those goals, but the harvest valuation alone cannot establish how much progress has been made. The real measure of the scheme is not the naira value attached to crops harvested. It is the additional food produced, the income farmers retain, and the price households ultimately pay. Until those outcomes are independently demonstrated, N2.3 trillion remains a reported achievement, not a complete account of food-security progress.