Nigeria is again moving to establish a national digital farmers register aimed at eliminating duplicate farmer records and improving the targeting of government agricultural support, as authorities seek more reliable information on who farms, where they farm and what they produce.
The proposal emerged at a National Strategic Dialogue on the AGROW programme’s Digital Agriculture Architecture in Abuja, where the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari, called for the creation of a unified farmer registry that can serve as a common reference point across Nigeria’s agricultural system. The dialogue was convened by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, the Bank of Agriculture and the World Bank.
Kyari said the objective is to move beyond fragmented databases and build a system capable of identifying farmers by name, farm location and the crops they grow. The government expects such information to improve the targeting of interventions including fertiliser distribution, agricultural loans and other forms of agricultural support.
The problem is not simply the absence of farmer data. Nigeria already has multiple farmer-registration and agricultural information initiatives. The Ministry said the proposed system will build on its partnership with the National Identity Management Commission to link farmers with their National Identification Numbers, an ongoing review of farmer databases with the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the FAO Digital Villages project and the Ministry’s own agricultural data and mapping systems.
The challenge is bringing those systems together. The government wants states to take primary responsibility for farmer enumeration, verification and routine updating, while the Federal Ministry, through its newly established Federal Department of Agricultural Data and Analytics and the National Project Coordination Office, coordinates the architecture and enforces a common standard.
That means the proposed registry is intended to be more than a large database of names. Authorities are calling for a single agricultural information ecosystem with common data definitions, authorised interfaces for exchanging information and clear governance arrangements within Nigeria’s digital infrastructure and data-protection framework.
There is also a proposed financial incentive for accuracy. Kyari said state financing under AGROW would be linked to verified growth in registered farms rather than simply the number of registrations. The distinction is important because a system that rewards registration numbers without verification could reproduce the same data problems it is intended to solve.
The proposed register is also expected to include farmers who are frequently harder to capture in formal systems, including women, young farmers and producers operating in areas without network coverage. That creates a significant implementation challenge for states, particularly where farmer records are still collected manually or where connectivity is limited.
Nigeria's Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security, Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, described agricultural data and analytics as productive infrastructure comparable in importance to roads and electricity. He argued that fragmented information has previously limited the country's ability to build a coherent agricultural system and pointed to the establishment of the Federal Department of Agricultural Data and Analytics as an attempt to create an institutional anchor for agricultural information.
The data ambition also extends beyond government support programmes. Abdullahi said traceable agricultural information could help address problems affecting Nigeria's agricultural exports, including the rejection of commodities such as hibiscus, sesame, cashew, ginger and cocoa at international ports. Reliable information on production and supply chains can become important as global markets demand greater traceability and documentation.
The initiative is therefore being positioned as part of the wider digital transformation of Nigerian agriculture under AGROW, rather than as a standalone registration exercise. The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Marcus Olaniyi Ogunbiyi, said reliable information on farmers, farms, soils, weather, markets and production systems has become essential for planning, service delivery and agricultural decision-making.
NBF Insight
Nigeria has spent years collecting agricultural data through different programmes, but the bigger challenge has been turning those records into one reliable picture of the country's farming economy.
A farmer appearing in three databases does not mean Nigeria has three farmers. A farmer missing from every database does not mean the farmer does not exist. Both situations can distort the allocation of fertiliser, credit, insurance, extension services and other public interventions.
That is why the proposed national register matters beyond its digital component. If implemented properly, it could give government a more accurate understanding of the people and farms behind Nigeria's agricultural production and give farmers a clearer identity within the formal agricultural economy.
But the quality of the system will depend on verification, regular updates, interoperability, and the willingness of institutions and states to share data under common standards. The objective should not be to register the most farmers; it should be to know which farmers are real, where they farm, what they produce, and what support actually reaches them.
For Nigerian agriculture, better data is not merely an administrative improvement. It can become infrastructure for better policy, better financing, better markets and more accountable agricultural investment.
