Women’s Farming Gap Costs Nigeria $2.3bn Yearly -FAO Warns

…UN agencies demand land, credit, technology, market access for women farmers

Nigeria is losing an estimated $2.3 billion annually — about two per cent of its Gross Domestic Product — because women farmers do not have equal access to land, finance, technology, agricultural services and markets, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) has warned.

The FAO raised the alarm in Abuja on Tuesday at a high-level meeting and panel discussion to mark the 2026 International Year of the Woman Farmer, saying Nigeria could unlock substantial agricultural and economic gains by removing the structural barriers limiting women’s productivity and leadership.

The meeting, held at the United Nations House under the theme, “Advancing Women’s Leadership and Economic Power in Nigeria’s Agrifood System,” brought together government officials, development partners, members of the diplomatic corps, financial institutions, private-sector operators, farmers’ organisations and women farmers.

Rather than treating women’s participation in agriculture as a social-welfare issue, the UN agencies said Nigeria must begin to view women farmers as a major economic force whose productivity, enterprise and purchasing power could significantly influence the country’s food security and rural economy.

The FAO representative, Hussein Gadain said women already occupied virtually every segment of Nigeria’s agrifood system, from production and livestock to fisheries, food processing, trading, entrepreneurship and household nutrition.

Yet, she said, their contribution remained constrained by unequal access to the very resources required to make agriculture productive and commercially viable.

“Women must be recognised not only as contributors to agrifood systems, but also as decision-makers, innovators, investors and leaders,” she said.

According to FAO, women account for approximately 41 per cent of the global agrifood workforce, while women contribute an estimated 37 per cent of labour in Nigeria’s crop production.

The organisation said the productivity gap was not a reflection of women’s ability to farm but largely the result of unequal opportunities.

It warned that leaving the gap unaddressed would continue to impose an economic cost on a country already battling food inflation, unemployment, rural poverty, insecurity and climate-related disruptions to agricultural production.

The FAO representative said closing gender gaps in agricultural productivity and wages could add nearly $1 trillion to the global economy and reduce food insecurity for millions of people.

The warning assumes greater significance given agriculture’s importance to the Nigerian economy.

Agriculture contributes approximately 22 to 25 per cent of Nigeria’s GDP, while an estimated 35 to 40 per cent of the labour force is engaged in the sector. More than 70 per cent of rural households depend on agriculture for all or part of their income and food security.

Women are deeply embedded in this system, but their work often extends beyond what is captured in conventional measures of agricultural production.

They cultivate crops, rear livestock, process farm produce, participate in fisheries and aquaculture, transport and trade food, run small agribusinesses and play a central role in household food and nutrition security.

The problem, according to the UN agencies, is that women frequently remain concentrated at the lower-value end of agricultural value chains, while control over productive assets, finance, technology and major commercial decisions remains disproportionately outside their reach.

This limits not only individual women but the wider economy.

The FAO therefore called for a shift from programmes that merely seek to “include” women to policies that deliberately expand their economic power and representation in agricultural decision-making.

It said greater access to finance, technology, markets and productive resources would allow more women-led enterprises to grow and create jobs.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said its experience in northern Nigeria showed that targeted investment could help women move from vulnerable farming households into stronger economic activities.

The Country Director, Katrien Ghoos

who was represented by the Deputy Country Director, Edouard Thiam

said 128,000 women had formed a major part of its work with farming communities in northern Nigeria over the past five years.

WFP said Its interventions have included the provision of seeds, fertiliser and other inputs, access to equipment and storage facilities, irrigation, market linkages and community resilience hubs.

Ghoos said the interventions were designed not merely to increase harvests but to enable farmers to remain productive despite conflict, insecurity, climate shocks and rising production costs.

More than 70 per cent of jobs created through WFP activities have gone to young women, it disclosed.

Ghoos added that increased agricultural production was generating economic activity for traders, transporters and processors beyond the farm gate.

She also stressed the importance of local procurement, saying its purchase of food from Nigerian farmers and businesses helped keep money within the domestic economy, sustain rural markets and create employment.

“Investing in women farmers is not separate from investing in Nigerian agriculture. It is part of the same ambition to generate greater prosperity,” the WFP representative said.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) also presented evidence of the scale of investment required to translate women’s agricultural participation into economic empowerment.

Representing IFAD, the Country Director Mohamed El-Ghazaly, said the agency said at least 96,827 women had been reached through three of its programmes in Nigeria: the Value Chain Development Programme (VCDP), Livelihood Improvement Family Enterprises – Niger Delta (LIFE-ND), and Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones (SAPZ).

The interventions have sought to strengthen women’s participation in organised production, access to finance, agricultural knowledge, technology and markets.

Under VCDP, 87,888 women are members of supported rural producer organisations, while 36,572 have received training in crop production technologies and 50,613 have accessed advisory services.

LIFE-ND has trained 17,201 women, including women involved in crop production and fisheries, while SAPZ has trained 5,815 women in improved crop production practices.

El-Ghazaly said LIFE-ND had enabled 11,003 women to access savings, 9,568 to obtain credit and 11,382 to access insurance, while 14,654 had received financial literacy training.

More than 20,000 women across the three programmes have also received targeted nutrition support.

He further reported that nearly 60,000 female household members supported by VCDP had received assistance to cope with climate-change impacts.

The agency said the experience demonstrated that women’s empowerment must be approached as an interconnected economic issue involving production, finance, climate resilience, nutrition, enterprise development and leadership.

A recurring message from the three UN agencies was that women farmers should no longer be treated primarily as beneficiaries of agricultural programmes.

The agencies want women to occupy positions of influence across the agricultural value chain — as owners of businesses, members and leaders of cooperatives, recipients of investment, participants in policy formulation and decision-makers within financial and agricultural institutions.

The FAO representative, Hussein Gadain said the organisation remained committed to working with the Federal Government, state governments, development partners, financial institutions, farmer organisations and civil society to expand women’s economic opportunities through climate-smart agriculture, agribusiness development, financial inclusion, market access and gender-responsive policies.

Gadain, who was the Emergency and Rehabilitation Officer, Jimmy Owani, said for, IFAD, the national observance was also an opportunity to bring the experiences of women farmers from its projects across 17 states into the national policy conversation.

The agency said their participation was important because agricultural transformation could not be achieved solely through policies formulated in national capitals.

The women farmers, it said, represented thousands of others across Nigeria who were already feeding families, creating jobs, strengthening rural economies and contributing to national food security.

The challenge now is to ensure that the women producing food are also empowered to determine how Nigeria’s agricultural economy is financed, organised and developed.

As the UN agencies marked the International Year of the Woman Farmer, they urged Nigeria to use 2026 as a turning point — moving from recognition of women’s contribution to concrete investments that give them greater productive capacity, income, ownership and leadership.

The FAO representative summed up the economic argument bluntly: when women farmers succeed, families prosper; when women-led businesses expand, rural economies grow; and when women gain leadership across agrifood systems, Nigeria moves closer to food security and sustainable economic development.