Nigeria’s Agriculture GDP Share Rises to 27.8% in Q1 2025 Despite Sector Challenges
Nigeria’s agricultural sector recorded a notable increase in its GDP share to 27.8% in Q1 2025, according to new data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). This reflects a 3.2% gain compared to the previous base-year methodology. The rise comes amid wider economic headwinds and follows a comprehensive GDP rebasing exercise which has realigned sectoral contributions. Industry and services, by contrast, saw their shares fall to 16.67% and 55.52%, respectively.
The rebasing, which now uses 2019 as the base year, incorporated broader data sets including the National Business Sample Census (NBSC) and National Agricultural Sample Survey (2022). This led to agriculture’s revised output climbing significantly, with crop production—the sector’s main driver—jumping from N50 trillion to N61 trillion. This increase emphasizes crop farming’s dominant role, while other subsectors remain relatively small contributors.
Economists point to improved crop production as the core factor behind the growth. According to Ayo Teriba of Economics Associates, crop production accounts for the lion’s share of the agricultural sector’s output. Meanwhile, real output in the agricultural sector showed a marginal rebound of 0.07% in Q1 2025, reversing the 1.79% contraction seen during the same period in 2024. Improved security, investor confidence, and falling food prices were credited for this slight recovery.
However, the performance was mixed across subsectors. While crop production rose by 3.71%, the livestock subsector contracted sharply by 16.69%. Analysts noted that despite modest progress, the sector underperformed relative to CBN’s Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), which had indicated stronger momentum at 53.43 points for Q1 2025, up from 46.30 a year earlier.
Despite the uptick in output, agriculture’s overall share of GDP actually dipped to 23.33% in Q1 2025 from 24.04% in Q1 2024, as other sectors grew faster. Experts warned that underlying issues like erratic weather, poor transport networks, and inadequate storage infrastructure remain major obstacles to sustained agricultural growth. While government policies have provided some lift, deeper structural reforms are needed to truly unlock the sector’s potential.
Source: The sun