Billions For Rail, Trucks For Food: Why Nigeria’s Railway Is Yet To Transform Farm-To-Market Logistics
By TINA TOLUTOPE
Nigeria’s Rail Revolution Misses the Food Basket as Farmers Remain Trapped on Costly Roads
FOR decades, Nigeria’s railway has been presented as a critical solution to the country’s transportation and economic challenges. Successive governments have promised that expanded rail infrastructure would provide a cheaper, safer and more efficient alternative to road transport.
The expectation is straightforward. Rail should move passengers and bulk cargo, ease pressure on highways, reduce logistics costs and connect production centres with major markets.
Yet, for farmers and food traders, particularly those moving produce from northern and Middle Belt agricultural communities to southern cities, that promise remains largely unfulfilled.
Tomatoes, onions, potatoes, maize, grains, yams and other agricultural products still travel predominantly by truck. As a result, farmers and traders remain exposed to the high cost of diesel, poor roads, insecurity, checkpoints, vehicle breakdowns and delays.
At the same time, billions of naira continue to flow into railway infrastructure and operations.
A Railway Carrying Only a Fraction of the Nation’s Freight
Available freight data reveal the scale of the problem.
National Bureau of Statistics figures, based on information supplied by the Nigerian Railway Corporation, show that rail transported about 160,650 tonnes of goods and cargo in the first quarter of 2024. The figure fell to 143,759 tonnes in the second quarter and 96,401 tonnes in the third.
In the fourth quarter, rail freight stood at 94,750 tonnes, bringing total railway cargo for the year to approximately 495,560 tonnes.
There was some improvement in 2025. Rail transported 181,520 tonnes in the first quarter and 210,570 tonnes in the second. The third quarter recorded 130,540 tonnes, while the fourth quarter accounted for 62,840 tonnes.
The annual total was therefore about 585,470 tonnes, an increase of roughly 18 per cent over the previous year.
On the surface, the growth appears encouraging. However, it remains small when compared with the enormous volume of agricultural production in Nigeria.
The Food Economy Is Vastly Larger Than the Rail Freight System
Nigeria’s 2024 agricultural output included about 11.2 million tonnes of maize, 9.13 million tonnes of rice, 6.42 million tonnes of sorghum and 5.08 million tonnes of groundnut.
The country also produced approximately 54.58 million tonnes of yam, 64.36 million tonnes of cassava, 3.74 million tonnes of tomatoes and 1.37 million tonnes of onions.
Not all these products require long-distance transportation. Neither should every tonne of agricultural production be expected to move by rail.
Nevertheless, the comparison exposes a fundamental weakness in Nigeria’s freight system.
The country produces food on a massive scale, but rail carries only a relatively small quantity of cargo. More importantly, the railway’s existing freight operations are concentrated largely around containers, cement and other industrial commodities.
That means the railway has yet to become a major artery for the movement of food from agricultural belts to Nigeria’s largest population centres.
Rail Freight Is Still Heavily Industrial
The composition of rail cargo reinforces the problem.
In the second quarter of 2025, standard and narrow-gauge railways transported 159,130 tonnes of cargo. Standard gauge accounted for 146,120 tonnes.
Of that amount, about 85,600 tonnes consisted of import and export containers, while cement accounted for 35,880 tonnes. Other commodities made up 24,640 tonnes.
The narrow-gauge network transported another 13,010 tonnes, mainly containers and cement.
The pattern remained similar in the fourth quarter. Of the 62,840 tonnes moved, 60,280 tonnes travelled on standard gauge while only 2,560 tonnes moved on narrow gauge.
Operators such as Diamond Star, Starlink, Ajuba Containers and CCECC handled significant portions of the freight.
These figures show a railway that is performing an important industrial and port-related function. However, they also expose the limited connection between railway freight policy and Nigeria’s agricultural supply chain.
The Cost of Keeping Food on the Road
For farmers, the consequences are immediate.
Agricultural production is often concentrated hundreds of kilometres away from major consumer markets. Once crops such as tomatoes and onions are harvested, time becomes critical.
Every delay increases the risk of deterioration.
Poor roads compound the problem. So do rising fuel costs, insecurity, vehicle breakdowns and other disruptions along major transport corridors.
A 2025 study of tomato farmers in Plateau State found that transportation mode and distance to market significantly affected post-harvest losses and farmers’ incomes. Researchers identified high transportation costs, insecurity, inadequate storage and poor infrastructure among the major constraints facing producers.
Another study involving 1,704 tomato farmers found that long-distance marketing increased the need for improved packaging because of the risk of damage during transportation. Yet protective packaging remains expensive and difficult for many farmers to obtain.
The result is a system in which farmers can produce more food but struggle to move it profitably.
Farmers Sometimes Sell Cheaply Rather Than Lose Everything
The transportation crisis can force farmers into difficult choices.
In 2025, the Tomatoes and Orchard Producers Association of Nigeria raised concerns about the effect of logistics challenges and high transportation costs on post-harvest losses.
Its president, Bola Oyeleke, said farmers who could not afford to move their produce to urban markets sometimes had to sell cheaply in nearby communities rather than risk losing the entire harvest.
For farmers, the problem is therefore not simply transportation.
It affects income, investment decisions and incentives to expand production.
A farmer who spends heavily to cultivate a crop but cannot move it economically to a profitable market may have little reason to increase production the following season.
Consumers Ultimately Pay the Transportation Bill
The cost does not end at the farm gate.
A tomato trader at Ikotun Market reportedly said the cost of transporting a trailer of tomatoes from Kano to Lagos had increased from about ₦1.2 million before the recent period of high fuel costs to approximately ₦2.5 million.
The trader estimated that transportation alone could add about ₦5,000 to the price of each basket.
Those costs move through the entire supply chain.
The transporter charges the wholesaler. The wholesaler passes the cost to the retailer. The retailer eventually passes it to the consumer.
NBS food-price data illustrate the broader pressure. In May 2026, the national average price of fresh tomatoes stood at approximately ₦1,561 per kilogramme, while fresh onions averaged about ₦1,180.
Regional differences were also substantial. Fresh tomatoes averaged about ₦1,747 per kilogramme in the South-West, compared with about ₦1,182 in the North-West.
Transportation is not the only factor behind these differences. However, the cost and reliability of logistics remain important parts of the food-price equation.
Rail Was Supposed to Solve This Problem
The irony is that moving bulk goods over long distances is precisely one of the historic arguments for rail transportation.
The Nigerian Railway Corporation describes the traditional purpose of the railway as facilitating the cheap movement of bulk goods between the hinterland and seaports.
The Bureau of Public Enterprises has similarly identified the transfer of freight from road to rail as a central objective of railway reform.
The logic is compelling.
Rail can move large volumes over long distances while reducing pressure on highways. A successful shift could lower road maintenance costs, reduce congestion and potentially make long-distance freight more predictable.
Successive administrations have made similar arguments.
In 2022, then Transportation Minister Mu’azu Jaji Sambo described rail as a cheaper, faster and safer alternative that should complement other modes of transportation.
The Tinubu administration has also presented railway expansion as part of an effort to reduce pressure on Nigeria’s deteriorating roads.
Billions Are Being Spent, but the Freight Shift Remains Limited
The challenge becomes more difficult to ignore when public spending is considered.
Nigeria allocated about ₦33.1 billion for railway projects in the 2024 budget.
The 2025 budget provided approximately ₦41.49 billion for major railway modernisation projects, including work on the Abuja-Kaduna and Lagos-Ibadan lines, rehabilitation of the Itakpe-Ajaokuta route, rolling stock and signalling.
For 2026, more than ₦240 billion was earmarked across rail-related projects. The Nigerian Railway Corporation itself received about ₦34.24 billion, including ₦22.38 billion for personnel and ₦11.65 billion for capital expenditure.
The central question, therefore, is not whether Nigeria is investing in rail.
It is whether those investments are producing the economic function the railway is expected to perform.
Infrastructure Alone Cannot Move a Tomato
NRC Managing Director Kayode Opeifa has repeatedly identified vandalism, washouts, inadequate funding and shortages of rolling stock among the corporation’s operational challenges.
He has also acknowledged that the government provides the NRC with more funding than the corporation generates and that further investment is needed to improve operations.
Some progress is visible.
In February 2025, the NRC and APM Terminals relaunched container traffic between Apapa and the Moniya freight yard in Ibadan. Opeifa said the NRC moved 362,327 tonnes of containers into and out of APM Terminals in 2024 using standard and narrow-gauge networks.
But port-container movement is only one part of Nigeria’s freight challenge.
For agriculture, the country needs something more comprehensive.
The Missing Farm-to-Market Network
A functional agricultural rail system would require more than tracks.
It would need aggregation centres close to farming communities, loading terminals near production zones, suitable wagons for agricultural products, dependable schedules and efficient road connections for first- and last-mile transportation.
Perishable goods would also require appropriate handling and, where necessary, temperature-controlled logistics.
Without those links, the economic calculation remains tilted towards trucks.
The truck comes directly to the farm or local market. Farmers understand its schedule and negotiate directly with the transporter. The railway, by contrast, may be physically distant from the production centre, operate on a different timetable and lack the infrastructure needed to handle perishables efficiently.
The Question Is No Longer How Many Kilometres of Rail Exist
Nigeria’s railway debate has traditionally focused on kilometres of track constructed, stations completed and passenger services launched.
Those measures matter.
But they do not answer the most important question for food security.
How much of Nigeria’s food can the railway reliably move from where it is produced to where it is consumed?
The answer remains relatively small.
The Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Works, Olufunsho Adebiyi, said in 2025 that about 95 per cent of Nigerians depend on road transport for the movement of people, goods and services.
He also warned that heavy-duty freight traffic was accelerating congestion and road deterioration.
That warning reinforces the case for rail.
But building rail infrastructure is only the beginning. The ultimate test is whether farmers, traders, manufacturers and consumers can actually use it.
Until Nigeria connects its railway system to the agricultural supply chain at scale, the country risks maintaining an expensive paradox: billions of naira invested in rail while trucks remain the dominant carriers of food.
And as long as that paradox persists, farmers and consumers will continue to bear the cost.
