How School Farms Can Strengthen Nigeria’s Food Security

Questions answered in this article:

-Why are school farms important to Nigeria’s food security?

-How can school farms benefit students and communities?

-What steps can the government and schools take to revive the initiative?

In recent years, Nigeria’s food security has been tested like never before. Rising inflation, insecurity in food-producing communities and climate change have all played a part in shrinking food production and driving up prices. According to figures from the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, the value of food and beverages imported into Nigeria increased from ₦3.83 trillion in 2023 to about ₦6.58 trillion in 2024. 

This increasing food importation trend has alarmed national stakeholders, with even the minister for agriculture and food security lamenting about how much the country spends annually on food imports.

However, while policymakers debate large-scale solutions, one of the most overlooked strategies may be sitting quietly within our reach: school farms. 

Until the early 1990s, school farms were critical parts of the Nigerian education system and even the local food supply chain. Produce from school farms is always distinguished and in high demand in local markets because of its quality. Maize, cassava, yams, beans, pepper, vegetables and fruits are common things to find in school farms managed by teachers and students. Somehow, this impactful initiative has declined greatly in the past few decades.

Once a common feature of schools, it has gradually faded away. Yet, if revived and properly managed, it could become one of the most powerful grassroots tools for building national food security.

Here are five ways school farms can help Nigeria grow its food future:

1— Building the Next Generation of Farmers

Nigeria’s agriculture sector faces a demographic time bomb, an ageing farmer population. According to Businessday, the average age of farmers in the country is around 60 years. That means fewer young people are entering farming, and innovations are slow to spread.

School farms act as training grounds where pupils learn the full cycle of food production from preparing the land, planting, harvesting, to processing. When students see farming not as toil but as a viable, modern career, the mindset changes. A 14-year-old tending a tomato bed could become a future agripreneur managing greenhouse technology in his twenties.

By embedding school farms into the curriculum and linking them to local cooperatives, students become familiar with mechanised tools, soil tests, crop rotation and even simple business skills. Over time, these lessons ripple out to their households and communities.

2— Reducing Dependence on Food Imports

Nigeria continues to spend vast sums on importing food. The Minister of Agriculture announced that Nigeria spends over $10 billion annually on agro-imports, including wheat, rice, sugar and fish. That money could otherwise support local farming, processing and job creation.

School farms offer a micro-scale but scalable way to help turn the tide. If hundreds or thousands of schools each produce vegetables, legumes or maize for their local communities, it not only supplements supply but instils the habit of 'grow what we eat' in a new generation. Over time, this helps reduce the pressure on import bills and strengthens local food systems.

3— Supporting Nutrition and Healthy Eating in Schools

Food insecurity is not simply about hunger; it’s about the quality of what is eaten. Many Nigerian children suffer from malnutrition due to diets heavy in starch and lacking in diverse nutrients.

School farms can supply vegetables, beans, eggs, fruit and other nutritious items directly to school feeding programmes to even out the starch-heavy diets they usually take. 

When students learn to plant, harvest and cook what they grow, the educational benefits increase their awareness of nutrition, hygiene, and their engagement with healthy eating improves. 

4— Promoting Climate-Smart Agriculture

Nigeria’s farmers are increasingly hit by erratic rainfall, droughts and longer dry seasons. One recent news piece noted that northern states are seeing their rivers dry up and local agriculture’s share of GDP sliding. School farms provide an ideal venue to teach climate-smart farming to the younger generation. Climate-smart farming techniques such as rainwater harvesting, drip irrigation, mulching, composting and crop rotation techniques that cost little but pay big dividends in resilience can be experimented with and taught sustainably in school farms.

When students learn that planting legumes improves soil nitrogen, or that raised beds conserve moisture, those practices move into family farms too. Over the years, this will help diffuse more climate-smart farming knowledge into farming households and help build landscapes that resist climate shocks.

5— Creating Community and Economic Impact

The power of a school farm extends beyond pupils and classrooms; it reaches parents, vendors, local aggregators, and neighbourhood economies. Consider the case of Nigeria’s Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (HGSFP), which sources food locally and supports thousands of smallholder farmers. One study of the programme in the north found that it improved farmers’ household income status by linking them to stable markets and also engaged unemployed persons with a means of income. 

When the school farm is also brought into initiatives like this, the impact will be very significant. If a school sells surplus vegetables or eggs from its farm, that money can go back into the school for better tools, irrigation pumps and more training and experimentation programmes or simply be used to reward farm hands who are mostly staff and students of the school with more money to support their regular income.

Individuals in the locale can serve as vendors, aggregators of offtakers for the farm, parents can form or join farm cooperatives with the school, and youth can find meaningful work in the mix. Over time, the school farm isn’t just for the classroom; it becomes a local food hub and economic stakeholder.

Reviving School Farms for a Food-Secure Future

For Nigeria to overcome its food crisis, agriculture must start from the ground up, literally. Reviving school farms will reconnect young Nigerians with the land, build skills for the future and promote healthier, more sustainable food systems.

The Federal Ministry of Education, state ministries and local governments must work together to restore school farms as a norm in every secondary and ideally primary school. The curriculum must evolve to make students growers, processors and marketers, not just consumers.

When we teach children to grow food, we teach them to grow the nation.