By Boluwatife Adedokun
A farmer can produce a good harvest and still struggle to make a decent income from it.
That is one of the contradictions at the centre of Nigeria’s agricultural economy. Farmers are encouraged to produce more food, governments invest in inputs and mechanisation, and new agricultural technologies continue to emerge. Yet for many smallholder farmers, the journey from the farm to the final consumer remains filled with obstacles.
The problem is therefore not simply how much food Nigeria can produce.
It is also about whether farmers can move what they produce to the right market, at the right time and at a price that allows them to recover their costs and make a profit.
For smallholder farmers, weak market access can turn increased production into increased losses.
The World Bank’s 2026 agricultural value-chain programme for Nigeria identifies weak market linkages among the factors limiting the country’s agricultural potential. The $500 million Sustainable Agricultural Value-Chains for Growth project is specifically designed to strengthen connections between smallholder farmers, producer organisations, agribusinesses and off-takers, while improving aggregation, post-harvest handling, processing and market access.
The emphasis is significant because it recognises a problem that agricultural policy sometimes overlooks: producing food is only one part of the food system.
The journey from farm to market
For a smallholder farmer, getting produce to market involves a chain of decisions and expenses.
There is transportation from the farm. There may be loading and handling charges. Produce may need to be stored before sale. Some crops require sorting, drying, cooling or processing. The farmer may also have to deal with several layers of traders before the produce reaches consumers.
Every stage can add to the final cost.
At the same time, the farmer may not necessarily receive a higher price simply because the consumer is paying more.
This creates a difficult situation in which farmers can face rising production and transportation costs while having little influence over the price at which their produce is sold.
The World Bank notes that smallholders often struggle to access formal markets because their production is fragmented and they may lack storage, finance, consistent volumes and the ability to meet quality requirements. Aggregation through cooperatives and producer organisations can help farmers combine their produce, negotiate with larger buyers and meet market requirements.
This is one reason why the idea of simply telling farmers to produce more is inadequate.
If the market system does not grow alongside production, farmers can end up producing more without necessarily earning more.
When roads become an agricultural problem
One of the most visible barriers is transportation.
Many farming communities depend on rural roads to move crops from farms to local markets and larger trading centres. Where these roads are poor, farmers can face longer journeys, higher transport charges and greater risks of produce being damaged before reaching buyers.
The World Bank has described rural roads as critical to connecting agricultural land with markets. Its Rural Access Agricultural Marketing Project Scale-Up aims to improve and maintain 6,500 kilometres of rural roads and strengthen access to agricultural markets and services for rural communities.
Previous World Bank-supported interventions also found that improved all-season road access in Nigeria could improve farmers’ access to markets and enable them to sell produce at higher prices.
The implication is important for agricultural policy.
A rural road is not only a transport project.
For a farmer, it can determine whether a crop reaches the market in good condition, whether a trader is willing to travel to the community and whether the farmer has enough buyers to negotiate a reasonable price.
This is why agricultural development cannot be separated from rural infrastructure.
The cost of selling a harvest
Transportation becomes particularly important when dealing with perishable crops.
Tomatoes, vegetables, fruits and other fresh produce can lose value rapidly when transportation is delayed or storage is inadequate.
Recent food-price movements in Lagos illustrate how weather and transportation can affect the supply of agricultural commodities. A July 2026 market survey found that heavy rainfall in northern producing areas affected harvesting, storage and transportation, contributing to higher prices for some fresh produce in Lagos markets.
For consumers, this appears as a price increase.
For farmers, however, the same problem can mean something different.
Produce that arrives late or deteriorates during transportation may sell for less, while consumers still face higher prices because of shortages and supply disruptions.
This is one of the uncomfortable realities of the food chain: the farmer and consumer can both lose at the same time.
The farmer loses value because of spoilage or high transport costs.
The consumer pays more because the quantity reaching the market has fallen.
Storage is part of market access
The market-access problem also begins before a farmer leaves the farm.
Without adequate storage, farmers can be forced to sell immediately after harvest, particularly when they need money to repay loans or prepare for the next production cycle.
Selling immediately may mean accepting whatever price is available.
This weakens the farmer’s bargaining position.
The World Bank identifies storage, roads, electricity, irrigation, digital connectivity and farmer organisations among the foundational investments needed to connect smallholders to markets. It also warns that infrastructure alone is not enough: farmers need reliable buyers, finance, extension services, quality standards and policies that encourage competition.
This means that building a warehouse does not automatically solve the problem.
The storage facility has to be accessible, affordable, properly managed and connected to buyers.
The same applies to processing facilities.
A processing plant located far from production areas, without reliable electricity or a dependable supply of raw materials, may have little impact on smallholder farmers.
Why aggregation matters
One farmer producing a small quantity of maize, rice, cassava or soybeans may struggle to negotiate directly with a large processor.
Hundreds of farmers organised through a cooperative or producer group are in a stronger position.
Aggregation allows farmers to pool their produce and potentially meet the volume and quality requirements of larger buyers.
It can also make it easier for financial institutions, technology companies and agribusinesses to work with farmers.
This is one of the central ideas behind Nigeria’s new AGROW project, which plans to support structured aggregation and market links between producer groups and agribusiness off-takers. The project is expected to target up to one million smallholder farmers across participating states.
The approach represents a shift away from seeing farmers as isolated beneficiaries of government programmes.
Instead, farmers become participants in a commercial value chain.
That distinction matters.
Technology can reduce the information gap
Market access is also increasingly an information problem.
A farmer who does not know the prevailing price in another market may have little bargaining power.
A farmer who does not know that a processor is looking for a particular crop may sell to the first available buyer.
Digital platforms can potentially reduce this information gap by connecting farmers with buyers, providing price information, facilitating financial services and delivering agricultural advice.
The World Bank has highlighted digital agricultural platforms as tools for improving market connections and reducing transaction costs in West Africa.
For Nigeria, however, the question should not simply be whether digital platforms exist.
The more important question is whether smallholder farmers can actually use them.
A platform that requires expensive data, smartphones, constant internet access or complicated registration may exclude some of the farmers who need it most.
This is where agricultural technology has to be designed around the realities of rural communities.
Technology should simplify the farmer’s work, not create another barrier.
The middleman question
Middlemen are often blamed whenever farmers complain about low farm-gate prices.
But the issue is more complicated.
Traders frequently perform important functions in agricultural markets. They finance purchases, aggregate produce, arrange transportation and connect rural farmers to urban markets.
The problem arises when farmers have very few alternatives.
When a farmer has no storage, limited information about prices and no direct connection to larger buyers, the trader may have greater bargaining power.
The answer, therefore, is not necessarily to eliminate middlemen.
It is to create a market where farmers have more options.
Better roads, storage, market information, farmer organisations, digital platforms and direct links with processors can give farmers greater bargaining power while allowing traders who provide useful services to remain part of the system.
Nigeria’s agricultural policy is beginning to recognise the problem
The direction of recent agricultural investment suggests that market access is increasingly being treated as a structural issue rather than a problem that farmers should solve individually.
The World Bank’s AGROW project combines productivity support with aggregation, post-harvest handling, agro-processing and market access. It will also support research, extension, improved seeds and digital agricultural services.
The broader World Bank AgriConnect initiative similarly identifies transportation, storage, electricity, digital connectivity, finance, extension and farmer organisations as interconnected foundations for stronger agricultural value chains.
This approach is important because no single intervention can solve the market-access problem.
A tractor can increase production.
But if there is no road, the farmer still struggles to move the harvest.
A storage facility can preserve produce.
But if there is no buyer, the farmer still has a market problem.
A digital platform can provide price information.
But if the farmer cannot transport the produce, information alone will not solve the problem.
Agricultural interventions therefore have to work together.
The real measure should be the farmer’s income
Nigeria has spent considerable attention on increasing agricultural production.
The next phase should place greater emphasis on what happens to the farmer’s income after production.
Did the farmer reduce transportation costs?
Did post-harvest losses decline?
Did access to storage improve?
Did the farmer gain access to more buyers?
Did aggregation improve bargaining power?
Did processing create additional value?
And, ultimately, did the farmer earn more?
These are more meaningful indicators of agricultural success than simply counting tractors, seedlings, beneficiaries or training programmes.
The World Bank’s current agricultural strategy for Nigeria reflects this broader approach by combining productivity with value-chain development, market access, processing, finance, extension and climate resilience.
What needs to change
Improving market access for Nigerian farmers will require governments and private-sector actors to look beyond production.
First, rural roads connecting major farming communities to markets need sustained investment and maintenance, rather than attention only when roads become impassable.
Second, storage infrastructure needs to be located where farmers can actually use it and linked to functioning markets.
Third, farmer cooperatives and producer organisations should be strengthened so that smallholders can aggregate their produce and negotiate with larger buyers.
Fourth, agricultural extension should include market and business information, not only advice about planting and crop management.
Fifth, digital agricultural platforms should provide practical services such as market information, buyer connections and weather advisories in forms that farmers can access.
Finally, agricultural programmes should be evaluated according to their effect on farmer income and market participation.
From producing more to earning more
Nigeria cannot build a stronger food system by concentrating solely on how much farmers produce.
The country also has to address what happens between the farm and the consumer.
The farmer needs a road to the market, a place to store produce, information about prices, access to buyers, affordable logistics and the ability to negotiate.
Without these connections, increased production can fail to translate into better livelihoods.
This is why the next agricultural conversation should move beyond the familiar question of how Nigeria can produce more food.
The more difficult and more important question is:
How can the Nigerian farmer earn more from the food already being produced?
Until that question is answered, the distance between the farm and the market will remain one of the biggest obstacles to making agriculture a genuinely profitable livelihood for Nigeria’s smallholder farmers.
