We equip smallholder farmers, youth and women with tools, skills and innovations to unlock agricultural potential.
Agriculture is the backbone of the economy in Nigeria, providing sustenance, employment and income for millions. However, despite notable strides in improving productivity and food security in the early 2000s, economic growth has slowed in recent years and challenges such as climate change, inadequate infrastructure, inefficient supply chains and limited credit access persist, particularly for smallholder farmers. Although the country has abundant agricultural resources, including arable land and plentiful rainfall, local demand significantly outweighs local production, prompting a heavy reliance on food imports.
Additionally, the sluggish job market struggles to support the 3.5 million Nigerians who enter the workforce every year. The World Bank estimates nearly 39 percent of the population was living below the poverty line in 2023. Going forward, agriculture has an important role to play in Nigeria’s economic recovery and development. Future growth hinges on strengthened support for smallholder farmers that enables them to withstand extreme weather, access machinery, secure financing and optimize supply chains to increase profitability. This transformation is crucial as Nigeria faces the challenge of feeding and employing a rapidly growing population projected to reach 400 million by 2050.
With a focus on strategic partnerships and market development, Heifer Nigeria connects smallholder farmers with resources to strengthen their production and access premium buyers so they can increase their income and localize food production. Through our local partners, we provide crop insurance and access to finance to nurture financial stability and agricultural business growth, and we deliver weather updates and climate-smart technical guidance that enable farmers to respond effectively to environmental changes.
We facilitate and invest in vital infrastructure, including state-of-the-art processing facilities, and roll out forward-thinking solutions such as the pay-as-you-go tractor financing and mechanization program. This initiative gives farmers affordable access to tractors so they can reduce time and labor costs, which in turn increases crop yields and profits. Additionally, our social capital training builds strong community relationships and trust among farmers, improving their ability to collaborate toward mutual goals. When smallholder farmers thrive, the region’s food security and economic prosperity also improve.
Our primary objective is helping families achieve a sustainable living income, our measure for the amount of money required for a decent life — including safe shelter, nutritious food, clothing, education and health care — while also reaching additional benchmarks for economic and climate resilience.
Fruits & Vegetables
Poultry
Rice
Year Heifer launched in Nigeria
Household participants in 2024
Household participants to date
Heifer International’s work is organized at the country level into Signature Programs focused on large-scale, measurable and sustainable impact achieved by building partnerships at all levels. Each program supports farmers through time-bound projects designed to increase their household income.
Heifer’s Signature Program in Nigeria, Naija Unlock, aims to unleash the country’s potential for food self-reliance by increasing agricultural production to meet rising local demands while closing the living income gap for smallholder farmers and households experiencing poverty. The program focuses on three priority value chains — rice, poultry and tomato — and seeks to enable 2 million households, predominantly women and youth, to achieve a sustainable living income by 2030 through better access to premium markets, finance, insurance and climate change adaptation strategies, such as climate-smart agricultural practices.
A collaboration of Heifer International and Hello Tractor, Tractors 4 Africa is a tractor co-sharing model that makes ownership attainable for smallholder farmers, secures profits for owners offering tractor rental services and improves tractor access regionally. Tractors have been identified as a net income-increasing technology for smallholder farmers, and research has shown that access to tractors can result in up to a fivefold increase in smallholder farmers’ yields.
The project includes an innovative pay-as-you-go financing component that provides young entrepreneurs and smallholder farmers the opportunity to own tractors at a very affordable rate, offering flexible repayment based on actual tractor rental and eliminating the bottlenecks around collateral requirements by commercial banks.
To address the low agricultural mechanization within Africa, Heifer and its partners like Hello Tractor are increasing farmers access to technology and machinery to improve productivity and their incomes. This document outlines the challenges farmers face, solutions and impacts of increasing mechanization in countries such as Nigeria and Kenya.
