The National Agribusiness Policy Mechanism, a presidential policy committee, has revealed that about 3,500 rice farmers are set to abandon cultivation following losses estimated at N93bn across the sector during the 2025 wet season.The findings emerged from a dry-season farmer intention survey obtained by Sunday PUNCH covering 33,507 farmers across 13 pilot states, which showed that 10.6 per cent of rice farmers intend to scale back production during the 2025/2026 dry season.Applied to the survey sample, this translates to approximately 3,500 farmers planning to exit or reduce rice cultivation.The results were contained in the 2025 Major Wet Season Impact Report released by the Presidential Food Systems Coordinating Unit.
The report, alongside a communiqué from the NAPM’s Second Cycle Meeting held in Abuja between December 9 and 10, 2025, was made available to our correspondent on Friday.According to the committee, rice farmers recorded losses of N20,220 per hectare during the 2025 wet season.With the country’s rice cultivation covering approximately 4.6m hectares, according to data from the Coalition for African Rice Development, the sector-wide loss amounts to approximately N93bn.The development comes as farmers increasingly shift from rice and maize to export-oriented crops such as soybean and sesame, drawn by more profit margins and stronger global demand.The country exported sesame products valued at N700bn in 2024, ranking second in Africa and fourth in the world.According to findings from the NAPM, wet-season production declined by 2.8 per cent in maize, 7.9 per cent in rice, and 1 per cent in sorghum, while soybean production surged 38 per cent as farmers migrated toward export-oriented crops.The committee noted that 23 per cent of rice farmers planned to switch to soybeans or sesame due to declining rice prices driven by import pressure.It linked the profitability crisis to earlier policy decisions taken by President Bola Tinubu’s administration in July 2024, when food inflation exceeded 40 per cent.Before declaring a national emergency on food security in April 2025, Tinubu had approved, in July 2024, a massive duty-free importation of rice in response to acute inflationary pressures.However, with about 2.4 million metric tonnes of rice imported into the country, the committee recommended that the Federal Government should “formally close current rice import windows, given that food inflation has fallen below 14 per cent.”
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