Climate Change: Consolidating Farmers into Large-Scale Estates Is Key to Boosting Agricultural Production

Dike Onwuamaeze

The Managing Director of the National Agriculture Development Authority (NALDA), Mr. Cornelius Adebayo, has said that bringing farmers together into large farm estates is essential for attracting the financing, investment and infrastructure needed to counter climate change and boost agricultural productivity.

Adebayo made the comments last week while serving as a panelist at the Bank of Industry’s (BOI) Climate Resilience Knowledge Series, titled “Building Climate Resilient Enterprises in Nigeria for Sustainability, Livelihood and Inclusive Growth.”

He explained: “Aggregation, in this context, means clustering farmers. Clustering is the first step, and other solutions will build on it. If we want to increase production in Nigeria, we must bring our farmers together in clusters; investors will then be more inclined to invest, and it will become easier to secure farms with infrastructure such as irrigation trenches.”

“So, we must aggregate our farmers, provide strong investment in irrigation, offer extensive training, and deploy extension workers to guide them. With these measures, the production challenges we face will diminish. Once productivity improves, prices will stabilize and the sector will become more resilient,” Adebayo added.

He also noted that the government is adopting the mega farm estate model, which can accommodate 2,000 farmers in a single cluster, to address the land‑title issue that has long prevented smallholders from accessing finance.

Adebayo described a typical farm estate as covering 10,000 hectares and hosting 2,000 smallholder farmers.

“I know the government is tackling land‑access problems. In Kwara, Benue and Bauchi States we are clearing large tracts of land with solar energy and creating space for processing,” he said.

Adebayo highlighted that smallholder farmers in Nigeria often lack land titles, which limits their ability to secure capital and afford irrigation. “The mega farm estate model is designed to aggregate as many farmers as possible, grant them proper titles, appoint an anchor to represent them, and provide a guarantee for the financing they need,” he explained.

He also pointed out that farmers in northern Nigeria face more severe climatic challenges than those in the south. Adebayo said that inadequate land preparation is the biggest barrier to mechanised farming in the country.

“The federal government is addressing the lack of mechanisation by ordering tractors from Belarus. The effort is underway, but the biggest problem is that tractors cannot be used on most lands. When we visit sites, we find that stumps and stones have not been removed. If a tractor is placed on such land, it will be damaged immediately. The issue is not a lack of equipment but a lack of proper land preparation. First, we must prepare our land correctly; that is the foundation for everything,” he said.