In this report, ARINZE CHIJIOKE spoke with farmers across Anambra State who are now weighed down by debt after borrowing to finance their 2025 farming activities after prices of food items fell following the federal government interventions aimed at lowering food prices. The report also examines other factors that shaped sales outcomes during the season, most notably weak purchasing power.
Fabian Nweke inside his farmland
Feature image
At the beginning of the 2025 planting season, Oluchukwu Ben, a resident of Umunankwo, a predominantly agrarian community in Ogbaru Local Government Area, LGA, of Anambra State planted rice across two plots of land she had leased in the community.
To finance the farm, Oluchukwu and her husband borrowed N200,000, at an interest rate of 100% payable after the season. Over the course of the planting period, the couple invested about N500,000, including an additional N300,000 raised from the sale of palm oil. They hoped that a successful harvest would not only cover their costs but also yield enough profit to sustain their household.
By September, the harvest was abundant, and Oluchukwu and her family were happy. But when it was time to sell, prices fell and they hardly made the money that was invested. A fully processed bag of Rice that once sold for N70,000 in late 2023 and early 2024 dropped to N40,000 and even less.
Oluchukwu Ben says she has never had it this tough
“We could not make back the money we invested. We are struggling to repay the loan, and the lender keeps coming,” Ben said, visibly distressed. “The money went into paying for land, labourers, chemicals, and rice seedlings,” she lamented.
Oluchukwu’s experience reflects a wider crisis.
In 2024, the federal government approved a 150-day duty-free import window for staple food items such as husked brown rice, maize, wheat, millet, grain sorghum and beans to help curb rising food inflation and ease cost-of-living pressures. This directive kicked off around July 15, 2024 and was intended to run through December 31, 2024.
The policy, which also involved exemption from value-added tax (VAT) on basic food items, was implemented through directives from the President, Bola Tinubu with the Nigerian Customs Service and the Ministry of Finance overseeing the waiver. Although it technically ran into late 2024, making food more affordable for consumers, its effects, including increased import volumes and downward pressure on local food prices continued to influence Nigeria’s food markets and agricultural economy in 2025.
In Ogbaru and other farming communities across Anambra State, these market shifts have been devastating. Smallholder farmers, who form the backbone of Nigeria’s food production chain and operate on thin margins, often relying on loans, are struggling to stay afloat. Many borrowed heavily to cultivate their farms during the 2025 season, only to see falling food prices erase their expected profits and trap them in deepening debt.
Even non-imported food items recorded sharp price declines
In Umunankwo, where most farmers cultivate cassava and yam, interviews showed that prices fell significantly despite the fact that these crops were not included in the federal government’s duty-free import list. This suggests that factors beyond imports were also driving the downturn in food prices.
Amaka Obi had to sell firewood to repay her loan
One major factor was weak purchasing power. According to Amaka Obi, a farmer in the community, even when food was available in the market, many buyers could not afford to purchase in bulk due to inflation and shrinking incomes. As a result, farmers were forced to lower prices to avoid returning home with unsold produce.
Another pressure came from debt repayment. Many farmers had borrowed to finance their planting season and were compelled to sell quickly in order to repay loans or settle obligations, even when market prices were unfavourable.
Across different communities, farmers rely on local cooperative meetings and informal lending groups to finance their farming activities. These groups allow members to borrow money for a fixed period, usually with interest. Members typically pay interest rates of about 50 per cent or less, while non-members are charged between 70 and 80 per cent. Loans from private individuals are even more punitive, often attracting interest rates as high as 100 per cent. Failure to repay within the agreed timeframe attracts additional interest, further deepening farmers’ debt.
For instance, Ifeoma Aniegbunama borrowed N350,000, with an interest of N70,000 to plant yam but realised N250,000 after prices dropped.
“I had to sell it (yam harvest) to be able to pay part of my loan,” she said. But I also went back to the meeting to beg for an extension of the time to pay everything,”.
This year, she has borrowed N300,000 to cultivate cassava. She has also prepared land for yam, but she does not have money to buy seed yam.
“There are many farmers who are afraid of planting this year. It is sad because we spend a lot of money farming, hoping to make profits. For instance, we get land for cultivation on lease, pay labourers to prepare heaps for planting, buy yam tubers and cassava stems, apply chemical for weed when it is time and even pay for harvesting. All of this costs a lot.
Obi Victor, another farmer in the community borrowed N200,000 to buy yam tubers for planting last February. Altogether, he spent over N300,000, including payment for labourers. But after harvest and sales, he realised N80,000.
Obi Victor realised N80,000 after investing N200,000
Grace Maduka, a smallholder farmer in Nando community, Nkanu East Local Government Area, borrowed N200,000 from Udo Amaka, a local money-lending group, with an interest charge of N100,000. She invested about N500,000 across several plots of farmland where she cultivated yam, cassava and maize.
By the time she harvested, market prices had collapsed.
A wheelbarrow of cassava tubers that previously sold for about N30,000 was now fetching as little as N8,000. Yam and maize prices also fell, wiping out her expected income and leaving her unable to repay the loan.
“I could not even recover half of what I invested,” Maduka said. “Now the lenders are threatening to report me to the police because I have not paid back.”
In previous years, Maduka relied on dry-season farming, which typically begins in October, to stabilise her income. After harvesting her main crops, she would invest the proceeds in cultivating watermelon, tomatoes and other fruits during the dry season. That cycle allowed her to repay loans, reinvest, and sustain her household.
But this time, the losses from the main farming season broke that cycle.
“I couldn’t raise the capital to go back to the farm last dry season,” she said. “I plan to farm again this year, I have land, but no money to cultivate it.
Graphic illustration of farmers’ plight
What troubles her most, Maduka said, is the complete absence of government support. Despite repeated promises of subsidised inputs, credit facilities and farmer support programmes, she says she has received nothing from the Chukwuma Soludo administration in Anambra State.
Market saturation further compounded the problem for farmers. Cassava and yam are highly seasonal crops, and many farming communities in Ogbaru harvest around the same period, flooding local markets with the crops. Because the produce is bulky and, in the case of cassava, highly perishable, farmers rush to sell, particularly in the absence of adequate storage facilities, driving prices even lower.
Together, these dynamics meant that even crops shielded from import competition were caught in the broader price crash that followed the government’s market interventions. Findings, however, show that while the prices of farm produce declined, the cost of key farm inputs, particularly fertiliser, remained high and, in some cases, even increased in the open market.
In December 2025, the Senate urged the government to urgently intervene to cushion Nigerian farmers from the drop in prices of agricultural produce, warning that the situation could threaten millions of livelihoods and worsen the country’s fragile food security if left unattended to. Specifically, the senate urged government to design and implement emergency support measures to protect farmers.
The call followed the adoption of a motion sponsored by Senator Mohammed Danjuma Goje (Gombe Central), wherein he highlighted the growing imbalance between falling farm-gate prices and the persistently high cost of agricultural inputs.
Nigeria’s Agricultural Imports between 2021-2025
| Quarter | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
| Q1 | ₦630.20 bn | ₦443.36 bn | ₦471.39 bn | ₦920.54 bn | ₦1.04 tn |
| Q2 | ₦652.08 bn | ₦464.45 bn | ₦454.85 bn | ₦893.25 bn | ₦1.18 tn |
| Q3 | ₦789.10 bn | ₦512.00 bn | ₦643.70 bn | ₦882.24 bn | ₦1.10 tn |
| Q4 | ₦667.16 bn | ₦444.82 bn | ₦711.14 bn | ₦1.09 tn | — |
| TOTAL | ₦2.74 tn | ₦1.86 tn | ₦2.28 tn | ₦3.79 tn | ₦3.32 tn |
2025 data covers Q1-Q3 as Q4 is not available yet (Source: NBS Data)
“The lowering of the cost of food products has brought succour to Nigerians but has at the same time created special problems for the Nigerian farmers, “he was quoted as saying.
Climate change worsens situation
In the 2025 planting season, farmers in Ogbaru say excessive sunshine/extreme heat stress driven by climate change, destroyed their crops even before harvest, forcing them to replant multiple times, increasing costs and labour.
Plants need sunlight for photosynthesis, which allows them to make food and grow. But it becomes harmful when it is excessive and prolonged. Sunshine affects crops through a combination of heat stress and soil moisture loss, causing crops to lose water faster than they can absorb it from the soil, disrupting photosynthesis and weakening plant tissues.
Obi was a victim. Last year, she planted 270 tubers of yam, but after harvest, they looked like the tiny sizes she planted. She packed them in her yam barn, waiting to replant again this year because nobody wants to buy those sizes.
Yam tubers harvested from Obi’s farm
It cost N200,000 to buy the yam seedlings. But she could not pay immediately, instead, she promised the owner to pay after harvest. Now, she is struggling to pay back the loan and is having to sell firewood with her children to pay part of the money for the yam tubers.
She said that she also borrowed N300,000 to plant cassava with an interest rate of N70,000 from her local meeting group. Sadly, after harvesting the cassava, the price fell. A bag that used to sell for N25,000 was sold for N10,000.
“I spent N30,000 to buy cassava stems severally because they were dying due to excess sunlight,” she said.
“Now, I have loans hanging around my neck,” she lamented.
This year, she said, the community met and mandated labourers who used to charge N50 to make a single heap to charge N30, given the loses recorded in the last planting season.
In Igbariam, a community in Anambra East where farmers like Fabian Nweke planted rice, climate change-induced flooding destroyed farmlands. He said that he lost an entire plot of rice farm during the last planting season as a result.
“I planted across two plots, one of them was in the top land area that was not affected by flooding, the harvest there was bountiful, “he recalled. “But the second farmland was affected and I lost everything.”
Nweke said that he borrowed N50,000 from a community group, with an interest of N25,000 and is struggling to pay back the loan after the price of rice fell in the market. He sells his rice unprocessed and said a bag that used to be sold for N30,000 was sold for between N8,000 and N10,000.
Vivian Chibuzor, another farmer in Ubahu Ihembosi community in Ekwusigo LGA, said that she borrowed over N500,000, with an interest rate of N200,000 to plant yam and cassava but could not recover half of the money not to talk of profit.
“After harvest, the yam tubers were destroyed by pests, I could not sell them, my cassava farm was affected by flooding, which took some of them away and destroyed others. We had to harvest prematurely and sold at giveaway prices in the market.”
Now, she is unable to pay back the loan or collect another one for the new planting this year. To avoid a repeat of last year’s flooding, she is having to search for a new location to farm and that will cost her money, but she cannot afford it.
Fabian Nweke says flooding remains a major challenge for farmers
Some farmers have not sold or harvested yet
Amid the price drop, Jude Ewuzie, another farmer in Ubahu Ihembosi, has decided to store yam harvest, hoping that prices will peak soon. He has not also harvested his Cassava. Now, he says it is difficult to feed because there is no money. Unlike many of the farmers interviewed, Ewuzie did not borrow to cultivate during the last planting season.
“I invested N450,000 in my farmland but I was afraid I would not get half of the money if I sold them last year. I cannot afford to lose everything”, he said. “I ought to have started preparing for another season, but I have to wait to sell my crops”.
Like Ewuzie, Ezinwanne Ibeme, another smallholder farmer in Ubahu Ihembosi has decided not to harvest her cassava, after it was poorly priced at the market the last time she did. She had harvested some, peeled, soaked for several days to ferment and soften, and then sieved to remove fibres and lumps to get wet cassava dough/pulp. She had invested N170,000 on her farmland.
“At the market, it was priced for N5,000 instead of N12,000,” she recalled. I brought it back and processed it into fufu and sold and got more money”.
Jude Ewuzie says he waiting for prices to rise before he can harvest
“Since then, I decided I will not harvest again and instead, leave it on the ground,”.
She said she hopes that the price will go up, adding that it was not the same situation three years ago.
“We used to make a lot of profit after harvest and that is why we are still in the business”.
Inputs, credits from government hardly gets to farmers
Farmers interviewed in Umunankwo alleged that government-backed credit schemes often fail to reach the real farmers who need them. Instead, they alleged that funds are given to individuals working in government who then pass them on to friends and family members. These beneficiaries, in turn, lend the money to farmers at high interest rates.
Ewuzie and other farmers interviewed in Ubahu Ihembosi raised similar concerns, saying they are often excluded from the distribution of farm inputs and credit. Ewuzie even recalled receiving a call in November, 2025 from a man who claimed he had been selected to receive N3 million as credit from government.
“The man had all my details correctly, my name and even where we filled the form, but he asked me to pay N100,000,” Ewuzie recalled. “I told him I couldn’t afford it but that I would pay double once I received the money. That was the last time I heard from him.”
Ezinwanne Ibeme is struggling to pay back a loan of N170,000
Anambra State coordinator of Smallholder Women Farmers of Nigeria (SWOFON), Georgina Akunyiba, also re-echoed this concern. She said that countries met in Ethiopia in 2014, specifically at the African Union (AU) Summit in Addis Ababa, to adopt the Malabo Declaration and its roadmap to end hunger in Africa by 2025, a historic commitment to transform agriculture through increased investment, policy changes, partnerships, and resilience-building.
“But progress towards this ambitious goal has faced significant challenges”, she said.
“In states like Anambra, corruption and poor governance remain significant problems. “Smallholder farmers lack access to inputs (seeds, fertilisers) and credit. It is even difficult for farmers to get loan from the Bank of Agriculture because of their conditions,”.
The Commissioner for Agriculture, Forster Ihejiofor, and Permanent Secretary in the State Ministry of Agriculture, Ifeyinwa Uzoka did not pick calls nor respond to messages between January 5 and 12 on what plans the ministry had put in place to provide inputs and credits to farmers in the new planting season, especially after prices fell. On January 14, the commissioner finally picked but said he could not respond as he said was busy preparing a report. On January 20 and 21, respectively, this reporter sent follow up messages via Whatsapp and text, after several calls on Tuesday, January 20, 2025. But no response was received at the time of this publication.
How will farmers adjust?
Sunday Akpan, Associate Professor of Agricultural Economics at the Akwa Ibom State University, said that when food prices fall as a result of government policies, farmers are forced to adjust. But he does not think it is enough to prevent them from going back to their farms.
“The crash in food price in 2025 was not significant enough that it will prevent farmers from going back to their farms,” he said.
“There may have been a slight change in their income and we expect that farmers will adjust either by reducing the number of hectares they will cultivate, changing the species of crops planted, diversifying into other crops or changing or skipping processing.”
A Cassava farmland in Umunankwo
For instance, he said, many rice farmers are selling it unprocessed at the farm gate, skipping post-harvest processing to reduce costs and recover cash quickly. He added that whenever the government keeps the borders open, it must also introduce policies to regulate importation and ensure that it does not undermine domestic production, while at the same time creating an enabling environment for local industries to grow.
“It is not possible for the government to completely stop importation. That will kill the economy and increase smuggling,” he said. “We don’t produce everything, and we also export to other countries. That is how the global economy functions.”
Akpan further explained that importation can help stimulate competition, forcing domestic producers to adjust and meet the needs of consumers who have multiple options in the market.
He stressed that state governments must also fully implement policies aimed at addressing the high cost of production faced by farmers, such as the provision of subsidized fertilizers, tractors, and improved seedlings.
“Sadly, while many states have these policies, not all of them implement them effectively. In most cases, the inputs do not even get to the core farmers,” he said. “Insecurity, especially in the North, which makes it difficult for farmers to access their farms, is another major challenge that must be urgently addressed,”.
This report was made possible with support from the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR) under the Strengthening Public Accountability for Results and Knowledge (SPARK 2.2) project.