Making Nigeria’s $100B Agriculture Sector Globally Competitive

As I prepared for my Africa Business Landscape class, I found myself reflecting on a critical question: if Nigeria’s agriculture sector is already a $100B economy, why does it still struggle to compete globally?

Nigeria’s agriculture sector is already worth over $100 billion—growing from roughly $84B in 2020 to over $105B by 2025, and consistently contributing about 24–25% of GDP while employing more than a third of the workforce.

Yet despite this scale, the sector has only grown at a modest ~2–3% annually, significantly below its potential.

At the same time, Nigeria’s food import bill has expanded sharply—from ~$6–7B in 2020 to over $10B by 2025—while exports have lagged behind, rising only from ~$2B to ~$3–4B. This widening gap now represents a $6–7B annual deficit, driven largely by limited processing and weak global competitiveness. Companies such as The Reel Fruit, Tomato Jos, and AACE Foods have demonstrated the economic impact Agribusiness can deliver to the Nigerian economy.

The issue is not production—it is value capture.

Today, Nigeria generates 70–80% of its agricultural value at the raw production stage, where margins are lowest, while capturing less than 20% across processing, branding, and distribution—the very segments that drive profitability and global competitiveness.

Meanwhile, investment patterns tell a similar story. While sectors like fintech attract 40–50% of venture funding across Africa, agribusiness continues to receive less than 10%, despite its outsized role in GDP and employment. Even within agritech, funding has grown from roughly $0.5B to just over $1B between 2020 and 2025—still marginal relative to the scale of the opportunity.

The consequence is clear: Nigeria has built a large agricultural sector—but not a competitive agribusiness economy.

And yet, the opportunity is enormous.

Every $1 million invested in agriculture generates 5–10 jobs in farming, but up to 30–50 jobs in processing and distribution—highlighting the multiplier effect of moving up the value chain.

Nigeria does not need more production.

It needs to capture more value, scale more businesses, and compete more effectively—both locally and globally.

Author: Ony Chinedu Mgbeahurike

Ony Mgbeahurike is a General Manager with a strong track record of driving commercial success across the food and agribusiness sectors, with expertise spanning supply chain, brand management, and marketing. He serves as Board Chair of African Food Changemakers, a pan-African agribusiness accelerator, and lectures on the Africa Business Landscape at Washington University’s Olin Business School. Ony is also an entrepreneur, co-owning Food Basket, an Afro-centric packaged foods venture, and Premier Brand Advisory, an integrated marketing and supply chain advisory firm focused on advancing Africa’s economic development.