The paradox of Kogi agriculture is becoming too painful to ignore. Across the fertile plains stretching from Ibaji to Ogori Magogo, farmers who once saw the land as a promise now experience it as a burden. The men and women who cultivate the crops that sustain households across Nigeria increasingly find themselves trapped in cycles of debt and disappointment. Like a river that nourishes distant cities while leaving its own banks dry, Kogi’s farmers produce abundance for the market yet return home with empty pockets. What should be the backbone of rural prosperity has slowly become a corridor of quiet hardship.
The causes are neither mysterious nor accidental. The price of agricultural chemicals has risen to suffocating levels, turning basic farming inputs into luxury commodities. Many farmers borrow money at punishing interest rates simply to purchase fertilizers, herbicides, and improved seedlings. Landowners, sensing opportunity in rising agricultural demand, collect increasingly steep rents from cultivators who have little negotiating power. By the time the seeds are planted, the farmer is already surrounded by financial obligations. Farming, which should resemble the careful nurturing of life, begins to feel like entering a battlefield already stacked against the cultivator.
Nature, once a reliable partner, has also grown unpredictable. Rainfall patterns that traditionally guided planting seasons now behave like uncertain guests, arriving late or departing too soon. Farmers often cultivate large expanses of land hoping to offset these uncertainties. Yet when harvest finally comes, another blow awaits. Market prices collapse just as crops mature, leaving farmers with barns full of produce but pockets empty of profit. The result is a cruel arithmetic: the more they farm, the deeper their debts grow.
What makes this decline even more troubling is the absence of effective institutional support. Nigeria once understood the strategic importance of agriculture. From the 1960s through the 1980s, government agricultural extension services, seed development programs, and mechanized support systems played a visible role in rural productivity. Today many of those structures appear abandoned or hollowed out. Ministries responsible for developing hybrid seedlings and improved farming inputs operate like silent buildings with little impact on the fields outside their gates. Even when intervention programs are announced, their reach is often limited, diluted by bureaucracy and the corrosive effects of corruption.
Kogi’s farmers therefore stand at a troubling crossroads. The soil remains fertile, the labor remains determined, yet the system surrounding agriculture has weakened. If Nigeria hopes to secure its food future, it must rediscover the seriousness with which earlier generations supported farmers. Agriculture cannot flourish on speeches alone. It requires functioning institutions, affordable inputs, reliable markets, and genuine accountability. Until those foundations return, the tragedy will persist: the hands that feed the nation will continue to struggle to feed themselves.
Equally urgent is the need to move beyond dependence on uncertain rainfall. Irrigation must become a national priority backed by deliberate government investment and technical support. Water management infrastructure, community irrigation schemes, and accessible equipment could transform farming from a seasonal gamble into a stable enterprise. Without such intervention the consequences will extend beyond declining harvests. Rural hunger will deepen, and farmers already weakened by debt will struggle to pay hospital bills or care for their families. A nation that neglects irrigation in an era of changing climate risks watching its agricultural heartland slowly wither under a relentless sun.
– Inah Boniface Ocholi writes from Ayah – Igalamela/Odolu LGA, Kogi state.
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