By SpeakUp Collective Nigeria (SCN)
Giving Voice to the Voiceless, Strength to the Truth, and Hope to a Nation on the Edge.
Your Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu,
Your Excellencies, the 36 State Governors of our beloved Nigeria, Imagine this: A mother in Kano, Delta, Enugu, or Sokoto wakes up at dawn, as she always has, to prepare a simple meal for her children. But the pot is empty. The bag of garri she could once afford is now a distant memory. The maize she hoped would become pap for her toddler has vanished from the market not because of drought or flood alone, but because the farmers who once filled our barns with hope have walked away in heartbreak.
This is not a distant nightmare. It is the gathering storm we see today, in December 2025. Across our land, markets tempt us with seemingly “cheap” cassava, maize, and sorghum. Families cheer the temporary relief. Yet behind every low price at the consumer end lies a devastating truth: our farmers are selling their harvests at crushing losses.
Production costs have soared diesel, fertiliser, chemicals, labour, transport often tripling or more compared to past years. One hectare of maize or rice can now cost nearly ₦2 million to cultivate. Yet at harvest, farmers receive far less, sometimes barely half their investment. Maize farmers have reported average losses of ₦40,000+ per hectare this season.
Cassava farmers watched prices collapse under imports and gluts. Many have held back stocks, hoping for better days, only to see prices fall further. These are not statistics. These are fathers who have poured their life savings, their sweat, their faith into the soil only to reap debt and despair. They are mothers who farm with babies strapped to their backs, now wondering if they can afford to plant again in 2026.
If they do not plant, we all starve.
The cycle is merciless and inevitable:
- Farmers retreat from the fields → fewer hectares planted
- Production collapses → scarcity grips the nation
- Prices explode beyond reach → the same families celebrating “cheap food” today will face empty plates tomorrow
The winners? Only speculators and hoarders who will sell back to us at prices that mock our daily wages and dignity. Nigeria cannot survive another man-made famine. We have seen the warnings: food inflation remains stubborn, millions face acute hunger, and insecurity continues to drive farmers from their lands. This crisis is not fate it is the direct result of policy gaps that leave our farmers unprotected and our people vulnerable.
Your Excellency Mr. President, Your Excellencies the Governors this is a plea from the heart of our nation.
You hold the power to break this cycle. You can turn despair into dignity for the farmer and hope into meals for every table. We, the SpeakUp Collective Nigeria, urge you with urgency and deep respect to act now, before the next planting season begins:
- Announce Minimum Floor Prices for Key Staples Immediately Guarantee a base price before planting. If markets fall below it, let the government buy and store the surplus. When prices threaten to soar, release stocks to shield families. Buy low to save farmers; release to save the people.
- Make Strategic Food Reserves a Living Shield Not just warehouses on paper, but modern, transparent systems with clear rules for release a true buffer against volatility.
- Replace Political Handouts with Targeted, Digital Input Support Provide registered farmers with redeemable vouchers for fertiliser, seeds, and chemicals through accredited dealers reaching real tillers of the soil, not middlemen.
- Introduce Comprehensive Agriculture Insurance Let payouts replace tears when drought, flood, pests, or price crashes strike. No farmer should lose everything from one bad season.
- Promote Contract Farming and Guaranteed Off-Take Link cooperatives directly to processors, mills, and factories so farmers know their buyer and price before the first seed is sown.
- Fix the Roads, Build Aggregation Centres, and Empower Information Feeder roads, rail links, price data via SMS/USSD give farmers bargaining power and reduce losses that bleed us all.
- Invest in Processing and Value Addition Turn raw gluts into flour, starch, feed, ethanol creating year-round demand that stabilizes prices and creates jobs.
This is not about farmers versus the people. Affordable food and profitable farming are not enemies they are twin pillars of our survival as a nation. When farmers thrive, mothers feed their children, children go to school strong, and Nigeria stands tall.
Your Excellency, Your Excellencies listen to the silence that is coming.
The farms will not shout. They will simply empty. The silence will echo in empty pots, in children’s cries, in mothers’ broken hearts.
Act today, so that tomorrow every Nigerian can eat with dignity. Support the hands that feed us, so no family goes hungry.
This is our national emergency. This is our shared future. In urgent hope and unwavering faith in Nigeria.
Otunba (Dr.) Abdulfalil Abayomi Odunowo
National President, SpeakUp Collective Nigeria (SCN)
A Platform for Constructive Dialogue & Courageously Sharing Truth with Integrity.
