Horticulture: Experts seek shift from aid to trade
Few days ago, horticultural experts, the university community, farmers, entrepreneurs, donor agencies and members of the diplomatic corps gathered in Ibadan, Oyo State for the 2025 HortiNigeria learning event and stakeholder engagement. The event pulled a large number of young horticultural farmers and entrepreneurs from Kaduna, Kano, Oyo, Ogun, Lagos and other parts of the […]
Few days ago, horticultural experts, the university community, farmers, entrepreneurs, donor agencies and members of the diplomatic corps gathered in Ibadan, Oyo State for the 2025 HortiNigeria learning event and stakeholder engagement.
The event pulled a large number of young horticultural farmers and entrepreneurs from Kaduna, Kano, Oyo, Ogun, Lagos and other parts of the country to network and share knowledge on Nigeria’s horticultural sector.
Funded by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (EKN) in Nigeria, HortiNigeria seeks to facilitate the development of a sustainable and inclusive horticulture sector in Nigeria
The Ambassador of the Kingdom of Netherlands to Nigeria, Mr Bengt van Loosdrecht, who was a keynote speaker, said the kingdom was excited to see how impactful the programme had become in raising and supporting farmers to enhance their productivity.
“When we started, we hoped to reach thousands of farmers; and it has been more than a thousand. Working in Nigeria has empowered over 70,000 smallholder farmers. And crucially, this growth has been inclusive. Over 40 per cent of the farmers are women and 50 per cent are dynamically young people under the age of 35. And that’s really what we want to do.
“We are seeing women move from farmlands to farm owners, and we see young graduates who choose agribusiness over private urban job markets. They are becoming business service providers, lead farmers and aggregators. They are the new pillars of a modern agricultural economy. The results are really astounding,” he said.
Ambassador Loosdrecht said farmers in the programme had reported an average yield increase of 92 per cent in crops like cabbage, tomatoes and onions.
“A farmer who once harvested 10 tonnes of tomatoes is now harvesting about 20 tonnes on the same piece of land. That’s doubling a family’s income.
“Horticulture is not abstract. It is tomatoes in your stew. It is peppers in your jollof, onions in every market basket. When yields improve and post-harvest losses reduce, families eat better, markets stabilise and incomes grow. This is why the states of Kaduna, Kano, Ogun, and Oyo stepped up with partnership from the very beginning,” the diplomat said.
Mohammed Salasi Idris, the programme director, in an interview with Weekend Trust, painted the picture of the vegetable sector in Nigeria, adding, “With the right environment, Nigeria can double horticulture exports by 2030.
“We can also hit $500 million in horticulture exports, create thousands of jobs and bring down food inflation. But we cannot do this alone, we need you and you need each other,” he told participants who gathered for the learning event.
Idri believes that this is not just about farming; it is about jobs and trade. “We need to look at the next chapter. The next chapter is about moving from aid to trade. This means scaling up protective cultivation and open field, greenhouses, climate-smart practices. This means that we need to expand cold chain processing infrastructure so that we can meet local and export standards. It means stronger finance and policy reforms so that banks, investors and entrepreneurs see horticulture as a sector worth betting on.
“When we started in late 2021, precisely November 1, Nigeria’s horticultural sector was full of promises but also full of challenges. There was a vegetable supply deficit of over 13 million metric tonnes of quality seeds and inputs that hardly reached the last mile farmer. Extension services were weak.
“Post-harvest losses often reached 40 to 50 per cent. Finance was another barrier. Banks saw the sector as too risky. Over $1 billion in financing gaps held back this sector. Food prices were unstable. Just last year, the price of tomatoes, as we know, rose to over 300 per cent in one season, hurting millions of our farmers,” he said.
For the programme director, the learning event was about asking what worked, what didn’t work, how to build on successes because despite the huge potential, agricultural exports remain below $400 million.
One of the programme’s successes, according to Ms Mary Omolola Omaolapo, the monitoring, evaluation and learning coordinator, has been the increase in the number of women and youths participating as more young people are empowering the country’s future generation of millionaires.
“We have been able to achieve 100 per cent of our inclusion targets in terms of youth and women targets for the programme. As a result of that, we have seen a lot of impact from that space. On the adoption rates, we have over 60 per cent of our farmers adopting the new technology even within the challenges that we find ourselves in from 2023 to 2025.
“However, talking about the specific impact we have made in terms of yield, we have achieved 93 per cent yield increase on the average for our target crops, as well as 83 per cent of the post-harvest losses against the target of 60 per cent. Then on the income side, we had over 200 per cent income increase. This is also as a result of the understanding of the quality of produce that is being sold and produced by our farmers, which earns them premium price for the products they sell,” she said.
One of the challenges has been the inability to reach their target on financial mobilisation.
“We are charged to mobilise 6 million euros within a space of four years. As at now, we have mobilised over 4 million euros. But don’t forget that when the target was set, it was N450 that was the exchange rate (naira to dollar), but today, we have N1,500, which means comparing what we have achieved because we are mobilising fund through naira value. If you convert it with N450 per dollar in 2022, we have overachieved our target. But looking at the current exchange rate, we are still at 66 per cent of target against the LOP target of the programme,” Omaolapo said.
She added that due to stronger currencies of neighbouring countries, labour became a significant concern in the South-West as the value of the naira declined.
Young farmers, entrepreneurs speak
Young farmers and businesspeople believe that the horticultural industry has a brighter future because many of them with academic backgrounds can harvest opportunities across the value chain.
In an exclusive interview with Weekend Trust during the programme, Samson Ogbole, a young farmer and team lead of Soilless Farm Lab, who owns over 100 acres of greenhouses, said his success hinged on his determination to succeed and the partnership and support he got from the programme, adding that his farm has now become a model that inspires many youths in the country to come into the sector.
Another young entrepreneur and owner of Mix Condiment Paste Nig Ltd based in Kano, Amina Mohammed Sani, told Weekend Trust that her journey had been one of many experiences. Today, her business is one of the biggest tomato paste producers in Kano.
The Chemistry graduate said HortiNigeria helped her strengthen her capacity and skill to survive in the business. She said although the journey had not been easy, she had learned a lot, which sharpened her skills.
A tomato processor based in Kano, Adaora Akojuru, another young businessperson who has a degree in Agricultural Economics, said she learnt a lot and increased her business through the programme.
Umar MaiSolar from Dawaki Kudu in Kano State and Mary Yakubu from Ikarra, Kaduna State, are smallholder farmers who have embraced innovation through the initiative. In separate interviews, they informed our reporter that their yield had more than doubled, making them well-liked in their community.
Because of his creative use of solar-powered drip irrigation to boost output in his community, Umar Solar earned the name, MaiSolar.
Heated debate on importation
One of the knowledge-sharing sessions sparked a heated discussion among participants about some of the issues facing the industry in the country, especially in the light of the significant importation and smuggling that have impact on it.
The farmer association and other stakeholders feel that organisations like the National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) must fulfill their obligations, while others believe that programmes like HortiNigeria have an important role to play.
The national president of the Nigerian Tomato Farmers Association, Alhaji Abdullahi Ringim, said the organisation had been working to persuade the federal government and its agencies to address the problems.
In addition to field trips to see some of the cutting-edge technology for combating the deadly tuta absoluta at the National Horticultural Research Institute (headquarters) located in Ibadan, the learning event featured multiple breakout sessions that let participants select areas of interest for knowledge sha ring.