*Lists three Bills set to transform agriculture and economy
WorldStage– As the Federal Government of Nigeria continued to implement several reforms including to curb inflation, currency stability, boost oil production among others, attention has been drowned to recent efforts to achieve sustainable stabilization through agriculture.
Mr Luna Bawa, CoFounder & CEO of EveryFarmer, an agricultural technology company based in Abuja that operates a B2B farming service platform, connecting farmers and buyers for seamless transactions, is seeing a silver lining in the reforms going on in the agricultural sector which he said had often receives less attention.
Bawa in a write-up titled “Beyond the Macro Outlook: What Three New Introduced Agricultural Bills Tell Us About Nigeria’s Food System Reset” to be published in WorldStage Nigeria’s Economic Report Q1 2026, said three legislative proposals before the National Assembly which had been passed would be the game changers that would “signaling a meaningful shift in how Nigeria intends to manage its food system.”
Bawa listed the Bill as the National Food Reserve Agency (Establishment) Bill 2026; the National Cassava Policy Coordination Council Bill,2026 (SB. 254); and the National Rice Development Council of Nigeria (Establishment) Bill, 2026 (SB. 541).
“These bills are not niche sectoral matters. They are macroeconomic instruments. How they are designed, funded, and implemented will directly influence food inflation, rural employment, foreign exchange demand, and ultimately Nigeria’s ability to achieve single-digit inflation and inclusive growth,” he wrote.
Bawa noted that food remains the single largest and most influential component of Nigeria’s inflation.
“When food prices rise, headline inflation rises — and monetary policy tightening becomes inevitable, regardless of what is happening in the industrial or services sectors,” he wrote.
He said that the macroeconomic argument for the three bills was to replace ad-hoc crisis management with institutional coordination across storage, price stabilization, and commodity value chains.
Through the first Bill 1, he said there wil be a dedicated agency to manage strategic food reserves, release commodities during price spikes or shortages, and coordinate emergency food response with state governments and development partners.
The EveryFarmer boss said why it matters for the macro outlook is because Nigeria currently operates a food reserve system that is chronically underfunded, poorly located, and operationally opaque.
“As a result, when harvests fail or conflict disrupts supply routes, the government’s main tool is imports — which puts pressure on the naira and increases demand for central bank intervention,” he wrote.
He argued that a functional food reserve agency would moderate price volatility by releasing stocks during lean seasons, reduce reliance on ad-hoc food imports, and provide a buffer against climate-induced production shocks.
As for the second Bill which proposes a coordination council to harmonize policies across the cassava value chain — from smallholder production and processing to industrial applications (starch, ethanol, high-quality cassava flour) and export, he wrote that Nigeria despite being the world’s largest cassava producer, it imports cassava derivatives (starch, glucose syrup, modified starches) for industries ranging from pharmaceuticals to textiles to food manufacturing.
“This is a classic commodity paradox: produce the raw material, import the value-added product,” he wrote.
As for the third Bill that proposes a council to drive rice self-sufficiency, regulate paddy production and milling standards, and coordinate input supply (fertilizer, seeds, irrigation) for rice farmers, Bawa said it must be noted that Nigeria’s rice policy has been a decade-long story of partial success.
“Production increased significantly after the 2015 border closure and import restrictions, but domestic milling capacity remains fragmented, paddy prices are volatile, and smuggling undermines local producers. Meanwhile, Nigeria still occasionally permits rice imports through land borders or waivers, creating policy whiplash,” he wrote.
He belived that a functional rice council would stabilise paddy prices, improving farmer income predictability, enforce milling standards, reducing post-harvest losses and provide a single point of accountability for rice trade policy.
He however identified some red flags in the implementations of the bills which he hoped that relevant stakeholder will address.
“Macroeconomic stability in Nigeria will not come from a single reform. It will come from dozens of institutionally credible, adequately funded, and properly coordinated interventions — in fiscal policy, in monetary policy, in trade, and indeed in agriculture,” he said.
As a follow up to the WorldStage Nigeria’s Macroeconmic Outlook 2026, WorldStage has initiated the process to produce the WorldStage Nigeria’s Economic Reports (WNER) Quarter 1, Quarter 2, Quarter 3 and Nigeria’s Macroeconomic Outlook 2027 this year.
The data-rich WorldStage Nigeria’s Economic Reports that will capture the key trends and developments which will shape the nation’s economy, industries, and markets during the year and next year.
Specifically, the WorldStage Nigeria’s Economic Report Q1 2026 will be equally comprehensive, covering macroeconomic overview including regulatory changes- GDP growth, inflation rate, exchange rates, ease of doing business and monetary policy updates. Analysis of all key sectors including oil and gas, agriculture, manufacturing, banking, insurance, and capital market updates are taking center stage.
The WorldStage Nigeria’s Economic Report Q1, which will be in high demand by the business community around the world, will be presented in May 2026 at a forum that will attract key decision-makers in the public and private sectors. After the presentation, the report will be available in hard copies across the country and for download online.
WorldStage Nigeria’s Economic Report Q1 and its presentation forum present veritable opportunities to showcase leaders in key sectors.
