The Federal Government has launched a bold, comprehensive strategy aimed at achieving food sovereignty, eradicating hunger, and significantly curtailing the massive annual losses in the agricultural sector. The initiative comes as the country seeks to stabilize staple food prices and ease the high cost of living.
Announcing the scheme, the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, and the Minister of State, Senator Aliyu Abdullahi, confirmed that the new plan—dubbed the Nigeria Post-harvest Systems Transformation Programme (NiPHaST)—is the core component of President Bola Tinubu’s “Renewed Hope Agenda” for agriculture.
Nigeria’s agriculture sector, which contributes over a quarter of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), is severely undermined by post-harvest inefficiencies, resulting in losses estimated at over $10 billion annually.
Minister Kyari: “This is not just produce going to waste. It is opportunity lost and livelihoods destroyed… As we deepen mechanisation, expand irrigation, and strengthen our storage systems, we are laying the foundation to end hunger and make food abundance a reality for every Nigerian household.”
The NiPHaST program adopts a connected, multi-tiered system focusing on infrastructure and technology:
Grassroots Storage: Prioritizing household-level storage technologies and establishing community-level warehouses.
Modern Infrastructure: Deploying modern amenities such as cold rooms and climate-smart metal silos.
Strategic Reserves: Upgrading and effectively managing Strategic National Silos through Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) to ensure a buffer against food shortages and price shocks.
Furthermore, the government is backing the plan with significant financial initiatives, including the recapitalization of the Bank of Agriculture and establishing a \text{N}250 billion credit window to support smallholder farmers in transitioning from traditional practices to modern, efficient farming and storage techniques.
