The Organisation for Technology Advancement of Cold Chain in West Africa (OTACCWA) has revealed that Nigeria suffered between ₦3.5 trillion and ₦5 trillion in post-harvest losses in 2025 due to weak cold chain systems and poor logistics.

Speaking in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Lagos, OTACCWA President, Alexander Isong, said the country lost an estimated 30 to 40 million metric tonnes of food across key agricultural value chains.

According to him, the losses affected major commodities such as tomatoes, vegetables, fruits, dairy products, meat, fish and root crops. He noted that in monetary terms, the wasted produce translates into trillions of naira in lost economic value.

Isong explained that the food items had already been cultivated, harvested and transported before they were wasted, meaning the country effectively lost Gross Domestic Product that had already been generated. Farmers, he said, had invested heavily in land preparation, seedlings, fertiliser, irrigation, labour and transportation, only for their produce to spoil due to inadequate cold storage and inefficient logistics systems.

He emphasised that post-harvest loss goes beyond agriculture, describing it as a major infrastructure and economic challenge. Without certified and functional cold chain systems, he warned, Nigeria would continue to face rising food inflation, declining farmer incomes and reduced competitiveness in export markets.

Isong, who also serves as Country Director for Nigeria at the World Agriculture Forum, called for urgent national investment in refrigerated transportation, aggregation centres and modular cold storage facilities. He described cold chain infrastructure as the crucial link connecting agricultural production to economic prosperity.

He identified the shortage of adequate cold storage facilities as the biggest barrier to reducing post-harvest losses, stressing that without substantial investment in cold chain systems, the full growth potential of Nigeria’s agricultural sector would remain constrained.