Nigeria is trying to wake up a crop it has left dormant for decades, launching a national plan to rebuild its coffee industry and claw back a share of a lucrative global market. The Federal Government, farmers, state governments, research institutes and private investors unveiled a 10-year coffee revival plan at the inauguration of the Nigeria Coffee Revival Initiative Steering Committee, held at the Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria in Ibadan, according to Punch.
A Sector in Long Decline
Nigeria enters this revival from a position of real weakness. Data from the Food and Agriculture Organisation show the area under coffee cultivation stagnated at about 1,450 hectares between 2016 and 2023, and the country imports millions of dollars of processed coffee each year while exporting only a fraction of that value in raw beans, according to Ecofin Agency and StoneX. The human picture is just as stark, with an estimated 10,000 smallholder coffee farmers spread across 14 states, more than 90 per cent of whom cite poor pricing and a total absence of market information as reasons they have reduced or abandoned the crop, according to The Guardian. Aging tree stock, nutrient-depleted soils and virtually non-existent extension services have compounded the slide.
A Coordinated Plan
The new initiative is meant to fix those gaps together rather than one at a time. The Raw Materials Research and Development Council partnered the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, the Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria, the Nigerian Export Promotion Council and the Cocoa and Coffee Farmers Alliance Association of Africa to inaugurate the steering committee, according to Raw Materials 360. The programme spans 14 coffee-producing states, including Ondo, Cross River, Plateau, Ekiti, Oyo, Ogun, Osun, Edo, Abia, Imo, Kogi, Kwara, Taraba and Delta, and its pillars include replanting with high-yield, climate-resilient varieties, seedling distribution and agronomic training led by the Cocoa Research Institute, expansion of local roasting and milling, and mobilisation of private investment, according to StoneX. The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari, represented at the event, described reviving coffee as a strategic imperative for economic growth, export development and climate resilience, and pointed to the jobs a full value chain could create for youth and women, according to Punch.
Private Money Is Already Moving
Investors are not waiting for the plan to mature. The agribusiness group JR Farm signed an agreement with the Cross River State government to develop 30,000 hectares of coffee plantations over five years, with an early focus on arabica in the Boki and Obanliku areas, while a growers' association plans 28,000 hectares of combined coffee and tea in Taraba over seven years, according to Ecofin Agency. On the Jos Plateau, the vertically integrated producer Mai Shayi is running a 30-hectare arabica farm and branding its high-altitude beans as a Nigerian answer to premium origins, according to The Trumpet.
A homegrown coffee industry would add jobs, exports and processing value to Nigeria's food economy over time. FoodPrices Nigeria tracks verified retail prices across Lagos markets and follows the crops and value chains that shape rural incomes and the wider cost of food.