Summary: Power shortages are crippling Nigerian farmers and driving up food prices. From poultry to vegetables, the lack of reliable electricity is fueling losses and worsening the country’s post-harvest crisis.
From poultry to crop production and aquaculture, poor power supply, especially in rural areas, hurts farmers and their profits.
The erratic power supply in Africa’s most populous country is disrupting irrigation, food processing, storage, and poultry businesses as it forces farmers to rely on costly alternatives – generators that increase their operational costs.
Poultry farmers use petrol or diesel to power their generators for farm operations. These generators are used to run water pumps to keep the birds hydrated and heat to maintain their body temperature, especially during heat waves and cold.
“The electricity situation is bad here and we are on estimated billing. We still pay for light that we don’t have to use,” Tunji Tijani, a poultry farmer in Ibafo, Ogun State, said.
“I usually put fuel in the generator to generate heat for the birds when it is very cold and generate cool temperature for them when there is excessive heat,” Tijani explained.
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“If we don’t regulate their temperature the birds will die,” he noted, adding that electricity is also required to pump water for the birds regularly.
According to him, the situation is compounding farmers’ woes, especially in the poultry industry who are already battling a combination of issues.
“I lost over N500,000 last year and the two drivers of the loss were the high cost of poultry feeds and poor power supply,” he added.
Mary Odiase, a poultry farmer in Ekpoma, Edo State, has resorted to using torch lights and lanterns to provide warmth and illumination for her poultry farm owing to epileptic power supply in the area where it is located.
“We usually don’t have electricity here and my poultry farm cannot survive the additional costs of buying a litre of petrol at N1,100,” Odiase said.
Abiodun Olorundenro, a vegetable farmer in Ogun state, relies on a borehole to water his vegetables daily. He needs electricity to pump the water, but inadequate power supply in Sango, where his farm is located, has left him at the mercy of generators.
“I spend N3,000 daily buying three litres of petrol to pump water for my vegetables,” he said, attributing the high cost of vegetables to the additional costs of running the farm.
According to him, most farming areas are not included in the national grid because the infrastructure to take electricity to such remote places is grossly lacking.
Like other sectors, insufficient power supply and high costs of alternatives have challenged the ability of farmers and food processors to keep pace with demand.
In the last five years, food companies have continued to encounter challenges processing their products as power shortages impede their ability to run their machines and storage facilities.
“Our power supply is poor and we have to use generators to power our dryers for drying cocoa beans, especially during,” Amos Oluwokere, a farmer at Owena community in Ondo East Local Government, said.
“This has increased our production costs, especially after the petrol subsidy removal,” he said. “We must dry our beans properly to the standard level and we cannot do that without electricity,” he noted.
Oluwokere explained that the power situation is biting hard on other farmers in the state and cutting their profits.
“The impact of the erratic power supply is harder on other farmers growing food crops. They need it regularly to irrigate their farms unlike cocoa farmers for drying beans,” he said.
“We need electricity for storage and erratic supply is responsible for the country’s huge post-harvest losses,” he added.
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Post-harvest losses remain a major challenge in Nigeria, with unreliable power supply and inadequate storage pushing food waste to alarming levels. Nigeria loses N3.5 trillion annually to post-harvest, experts say.
Nigeria’s post- harvest losses have been estimated to range between 5 percent and 20 percent for grains; 20 percent for fish and as high as between 50 and 60 percent for tubers, fruits, and vegetables, according to experts.
Ibrahim Kabiru, national president of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria, said the country’s poor power supply and inadequate storage facilities are major drivers of post-harvest losses.
“You need power to elongate the lifespan of farm products that you harvest,” he said in an interview.
“There is a strong nexus between energy or power supply and agriculture,” he noted.
“You cannot process anything that you produce without power. Even when you slaughter your animal, to preserve the meat, you need a freezer, or else it will go bad,” he added.
