Nigeria’s agricultural economy is bleeding an estimated $9–10 billion annually due to extensive post-harvest losses, a crisis that experts say is crippling food security, draining farmer incomes, and slowing national development.
This warning came from Segun Alabi, Chief Executive Officer of Davidorlah Nigeria Limited, an agritech firm pioneering large-scale pineapple cultivation and fruit concentrate production across West Africa.
Speaking to newsmen in Abuja, Alabi described post-harvest waste as “one of Nigeria’s most urgent and solvable agricultural challenges.” He explained that the country loses between 30 and 50 percent of its total agricultural output each year due to suboptimal harvesting practices, inadequate storage, weak transportation systems, and insufficient processing capacity.
According to him, the financial value of the losses “is enough to transform the agricultural sector and significantly boost the nation’s GDP if properly managed.”
Alabi emphasized the need for rapid investment in modern storage systems, cold-chain facilities, silos, decentralized processing hubs, and affordable preservation technologies such as solar dryers.
He added that training farmers, improving rural road networks, and providing policy support would be critical to reversing the trend and stabilising food systems nationwide.
He noted that tackling agricultural waste would instantly strengthen the economy by increasing the volume of marketable produce, expanding export potential, and improving national food supply. “When farmers retain more value from what they plant, the entire value chain grows. This translates to higher productivity, stronger rural livelihoods, and a more resilient agricultural sector,” he said.
Alabi further stressed that reducing post-harvest losses would open new employment opportunities in logistics, storage operations, food processing, equipment manufacturing and extension services, particularly benefiting women and young people in rural communities.
He also highlighted the environmental benefits, explaining that cutting waste would reduce pressure on land and water resources, while lowering greenhouse-gas emissions from decomposing agricultural residues. Waste-to-wealth solutions such as composting, organic fertilizer production, animal feed, bioenergy and bioplastics also represent “new and profitable frontiers for entrepreneurs,” he added.
Calling for a decisive national shift, Alabi warned that Nigeria “cannot continue to lose billions of dollars every year to waste when those same losses represent enormous opportunities for wealth creation.”
He urged the government to drive investment and create an enabling environment for innovation, insisting that the future of Nigerian agriculture depends on how quickly the country confronts the post-harvest waste crisis.
