Diagnosis Meets Solutions at Future of Agriculture Conference 2026

A kind of tension that hangs in the air at events concerning national survival and sustenance. Speakers lean forward, speaking with a cadence that conveys the gravity of the issue, as the audience nods in appreciation. Journalists, rapporteurs and concerned stakeholders go home with a filled notepad and an illuminated mind, defining their next steps and behavioural changes.

This aptly described the BusinessDay Future of Agriculture Conference 2026 held in Lagos last week. The event drew an unlikely but necessary crowd to the Four Points by Sheraton hotel on the Island.  Seed scientists and merchant bankers, smallholder farmer advocates and state commissioners, agri-tech founders and grain traders, all convened under a theme that cut to the root of the agriculture problem in Nigeria; From Seed to Feed: Strengthening Agricultural Inputs for Food Security.

The event, hosted by BusinessDay Media, went beyond naming the problems, but plotted the way to a sustainable solution by analysing what has been working for small-scale farmers and can be expanded. As BusinessDay publisher Frank Aigbogun made clear in his opening address, the conference was not another gathering of people merely to talk; it proved to be a working platform for agriculture stakeholders. 

The Uncomfortable Numbers

Before solutions could be proposed, the room had to sit with reality. And the keynote speaker, Ayodeji Balogun, CEO of AFEX, helped build the reality chair and identified the ultimate problem of Nigerian agriculture to be a problem of input, which directly affects food production. He emphasised that "output is ultimately a function of inputs," and currently, Nigerian farmers are not getting it right with inputs.

Using real data from a survey of about 50,000 farmers, he made his argument very clear. The survey found that in the most recent planting season, 62% of farmers used lower inputs than in the previous year. Less fertiliser, fewer improved seeds, a quiet retreat that compounds over seasons into structural decline in output. 

According to him, this explains the contrast between Nigerian farmers' output potential and that of other countries. Ayodeji revealed that the difference in yields between Nigerian farmers who produce 4 tons of maize (about 40 bags) per hectare and Kenyan farmers who achieve the same yield on less than half that land is the quality of seed and other inputs available to support them.

Quality seeds are expensive and difficult to access for most smallholder farmers who produce the bulk of food in the country. Fertiliser use in Nigerian farms is equally in decline. Nigeria produces over four million metric tons of urea annually, but domestic usage sits below 250,000 metric tons. This is partly due to affordability and low adoption of fertiliser usage by farmers, leading to fertiliser producers exporting to foreign markets.

While identifying other problems, such as infrastructure gaps and logistics challenges, policy inconsistency, and availability of targeted finance for agriculture, he advocated for a multi-stakeholder collaborative solution. 

First, a partnership between the government and the private sector to develop a policy ensuring the production, certification, and distribution of high-quality seeds for farmers across the country.

A strategic shift from purely subsidy-focused regimes toward a "blend" where farmers start with grants or subsidies and eventually graduate to commercial loans as they build capital. He also recommended a robust policy to standardise grades and pricing, which would improve transparency and reduce market inefficiencies in the country.

A Model that Changed the Conversation

Kola Masha, co-founder and CEO of Babban Gona, actively embodied the spirit of sharing what works in the conference. He explained how his social enterprise has quietly rewritten the assumed risk calculus of lending to smallholder farmers.

"Everyone in this room has heard that lending to smallholder farmers is high risk," Masha told a visibly attentive audience. "A quarter billion dollars says otherwise."

Masha went on to explain how the secret of structure has allowed Baban Gona to deploy over $250 million in financing with a default rate below 1% to several farmers in Nigeria.

The organisation does not lend to individual farmers. It lends through Community Agri-Finance Institutions, to trusted farmer leaders who each manage roughly 100 farmers, serving simultaneously as disbursement points, quality checkpoints, and accountability layers.

By providing bundled credit, inputs, training, and market access, this structure also solved the "three headaches" of processors: high costs, low quality, and unreliable supply in Nigeria

What excited the room further was the announcement that Safari Foods, a women-led enterprise that only connected with Babban Gona at last year's conference, is already in the field, replicating the model with cassava, with a focus on building women-led supply chains.

"She said, 'we could never have designed that ourselves,'" Masha recounted of Safari Foods' founder Chinodu. "Now she's solving those headaches and building women-led supply chains while she does it."

Dr Anthony Job of Flour Mills of Nigeria was another panellist who gave insight into solving Nigerian agriculture problems, as he reemphasised the importance of the quality of input and how it affects the amount of output.

Architect Kabiru Ibrahim of the Nigerian Agribusiness Group called for incentivising the private sector to act as the "canon fodder" for productivity, emphasising that farmers will invest in quality seeds if they are shown the potential for high returns 

Amaka Chukudum-Ajide of Amicable Mondiale Farms identified timing and location as the biggest hurdles for farmers' adoption of mechanisation and modern farming practices. She shared an instance where waiting two months for a tractor caused significant production delays and warned about the prevalence of fake seeds in the open market. 

Adeun Esther of Psaltry International highlighted the severe shortage of extension officers as another important problem at the input level, noting a current ratio of roughly 1:700 farmers in reality versus the ideal 1:300, and she called for improved availability of extension officers to increase knowledge sharing with farmers.

The Financing Gap, and the Way Through

The second panel shifted focus to the money question, and the conversation did not shy away from its contradictions.

Agriculture contributes roughly 25% of Nigeria's gross domestic product (GDP) and remains the single largest employer in the country. Yet the number of commercial banks genuinely committed to agricultural lending can be counted on one hand. Interest rates from conventional lenders approach 30%, figures that make profitability for most farmers mathematically impossible.

Analysing this diagnosis, Kudzai Gumunyu of FCMB stated that traditional credit models for agriculture are a "tried, tested and failed system". He explained that banks are risk-averse with depositors' funds and therefore require innovative partners like Baban Gona or Psaltry to act as single entities that de-risk the lending process

Speakers from Coronation Merchant Bank and Sahel Capital offered alternatives, such as blended finance mechanisms, commercial paper raises that bring rates to sub-20%, and offshore dollar-denominated funding at single digits for export-oriented businesses. Sahel Capital also announced a 0% loan facility of up to $50,000 for early-stage agribusinesses focused on investor readiness.

Adding to the practical solution recommendations, AfricanFarmer Mogaji of Agbado Value Chain recommended "crowd-production", where massive tracts of land are developed with shared infrastructure like irrigation as a more sustainable alternative to crowdfunding. According to him, this model mitigates risk by removing dependence on rainfall and ensuring proximity to logistics

However, perhaps the most grounded insight came from a practitioner who told farmers not to look for financing until they have a decent buyer. Cobi-Jane Akinrele, founder of Ake Collective, advised bluntly that "agribusiness is still a business. It's not charity."

The deeper structural argument followed: fragmented financing produces fragmented agriculture. Nigeria needs value-chain financing, support that flows from primary production through storage, logistics, processing and market development as one integrated system.

"Agriculture really works as an integrated system," one speaker said. "If the financing solutions are fragmented, there's a problem."

Conclusion

Ultimately, the conference did more than spotlight the deep-rooted inefficiencies within Nigeria’s agricultural system; it reframed them as solvable challenges rather than permanent constraints. What emerged clearly from the conversations is that Nigeria’s food security crisis is not due to a lack of effort or potential, but a misalignment of inputs, financing structures, and coordinated action across the value chain.

Quality seeds, accessible fertiliser, structured financing, and knowledge transfer are not isolated solutions; they are interdependent levers that must move together.

Equally important is the role of collaboration. Government policies must create an enabling environment, but the private sector, financiers, and agri-tech innovators must drive execution with models that are both sustainable and scalable. The shift from fragmented interventions to integrated, value-chain-driven solutions is no longer optional; it is imperative.

As stakeholders left the room, the tension that defined the opening moments of the conference had evolved into something more constructive, a shared clarity of direction. The path forward is not without its challenges, but it is now better defined. If the insights shared translate into action, then this gathering may well mark a turning point, where Nigeria begins to move decisively from potential to productivity, and from conversation to cultivation.