By Ibukun EMOLA

KUDIRAT Salami, a smallholder farmer in Apaadi community, Oluyole Local Government Area (LGA) of Oyo State, did everything right. She harvested early. Packed her tomatoes carefully. Paid for transport. After five years in vegetable farming, she prides herself on planning ahead.

But there were things that were out of her control and that she could never have planned because by the time her produce reached the market, prices had collapsed.

Delays on bad roads, waiting time at police checkpoints and the absence of storage facilities turned her fresh produce into a race against decay.

“On that fateful day, I couldn’t sell anything because the market was already flooded with tomatoes that I had no chance of selling mine at all. Some tomatoes were already spoiling. Others were rejected.”

At the end of the day, to dispose of her goods which have now gone totally bad, unfit for consumption, she was asked to pay those who will throw them away.

“By evening, I had to flee the market. I was not ready to pay because I considered it as a double tragedy since I had already lost a huge sum,” Salami said.

For women like Salami, loss does not begin with poor harvest. It begins after harvest. So, you can have a bountiful harvest and still incur losses.

Timing is survival

Across many farming communities in Oyo State, timing has become a matter of economic survival for women who grow, harvest and trade perishable in crops. Without storage or price protection, they are under pressure to sell within narrow windows or risk losing everything.

Temilade Olabiyi is the leader of the Smallholder Women Farmers Organisation in Nigeria (SWOFON) in Oluyole LGA and vegetable farmer supplying tomatoes and peppers to Oje and Bodija markets. She said post-harvest loss begins long before harvest and one wrong decision can wipe out an entire season’s income.

Timing, she says, determines survival.

“You have to first look for the market before you plant anything,” she noted. With a 72-day planting cycle, Olabiyi explained, planting outside premium demand periods forces farmers to offload produce at giveaway prices or risk watching them rot.

When the road becomes the first market

Long before produce reaches a buyer, it must first survive the journey from the farm, often on bad roads riddled with potholes. For many women farmers in Oyo state, that journey is where losses begin.

Olabiyi said poor road infrastructure steadily eats into her earnings and triggers post-harvest losses almost immediately after harvest. She added that tomatoes and peppers, packed in traditional raffia baskets, bruise easily as vehicles sway through damaged roads, spilling and crushing produce along the way.

“By the time we get to markets like Oje and Bodija they start deducting money immediately. You pay ground rent, stall fees and other charges, sometimes up to ₦3,700 for one plastic basket, even before you talk about price or make a single sale. If there are delays on the road or at checkpoints and the tomatoes arrive bruised or late, the middlemen often take advantage of us. They tell you the price based on yesterday’s market or say there is too much supply that day. At that point, you don’t have a choice. You sell at whatever price they give you.”

Oluwatoyin Oyedeji, a smallholder farmer and resident of Oyo town in Oyo West Local Government Area (LGA), said she has come to realise that the economics of farming no longer favour women like her. She lamented that the rising cost of transportation and the influence of middlemen forced her to abandon selling in major markets altogether.

“The arithmetic no longer adds up. The levies and transport charges alone sometimes compete with my profit. I produce around five to six plastic baskets of tomatoes and I discovered that it costs more to take the goods to the market. At the end of the day, I barely make enough to cover all the costs and the efforts I put in,” Oyedeji said.

The reporter wondered why women farmers cannot find companies that use their produce and sell to them instead of going through the stress of taking them to the market to sell.

The Oyo State SWOFON Coordinator, Mrs Atinuke Akinbade said whatever members of the organisation produce is taken to the market. She noted that their desire has been to have companies or off takers who will buy their products to reduce post harvest loss.

“It is a lofty idea to have our produce taken over as soon as we harvest but that is not the case. We take our produce to the market as we do not have the leverage to connect with companies or off takers to buy off our produce.

“If we can be linked to the market where we will sell to the government or companies it will aid productivity and food security,” Akinbade said.

Pay to sell, pay to dump

At the markets, losses are institutionalised. Women farmers and traders from Sasa, Bodija, Akinyele and Omi-Adio markets told NAN that they are charged multiple, often undocumented levies on each basket of their produce, they pay additional fees on stalls already rented from government, and in some cases are made to pay again simply to sell off produce that has spoiled before it can be sold.

This is also the story of others who buy the produce from farmers to sell.

In Omi-Adio in Ido LGA, a potato vendor, Bolanle Raimi, says costs begin piling up long before any sale is made. She pays levies to middlemen, fees to rate officers, and informal charges on each bag before profit is even considered. Raimi buys in bulk from Omi-Adio, where a bag that once attracted a ₦200 local levy now costs up to ₦1,000. She said these payments go to middlemen and not the government.

Who are these middlemen? “Those who act as middlemen are those who have been in the trade for long who now use their expertise to control sales and sometimes they are market unions leaders or officials representing traders. So, sometimes they work with revenue officers to collect rates and not every time a receipt is issued, especially levies that are added to the selling prices do not have receipts,” Raimi said.

According to her, “We are paying to sell,” and when heat spoils what she cannot fry into potato chips quickly enough, she pays again to haul it out as waste. In a trade where potatoes last barely eight days if spread under ventilation, she said half of her goods can rot before the week ends.

“When farmers bring their produce to the markets, for instance at Omi-Adio market, the middlemen buy it from them and they add other levies to the selling price per bag. Aside from what farmers paid when they brought in their produce, each trader or vendor is also made to pay some levies.

“At Omi-Adio market, we pay ₦1,000 per bag. We pay this money to the middlemen, not the local government revenue officers. Farmers and traders of perishable goods like me are at a great disadvantage. Most times we rush the produce to the markets and sell at ridiculous amounts just to earn something in return for our efforts.”

Raimi said farmers who resist face consequences. Produce can be delayed, undersold, or rejected outright. According to her, middlemen operate in coordinated groups, enforcing uniform prices and leaving farmers with little bargaining power.

“If the farmer said no and asked for a favourable price for their produce, the middlemen would insist and sell it at their preferred price. If you go elsewhere, you will find those people saying the same thing because the middlemen usually cooperate because they have an association and together they ensure that whatever price they fix is the price every one of them pays to the farmer,” she said.

She noted that levy collection methods differ by market. At Omi-Adio, middlemen collect levies and interface with revenue authorities, whereas at Kila market in neighbouring Ogun State, farmers and traders pay government officials directly.

“What middlemen do is respond to surplus,” she explained. “If a product floods the market, the price drops. When supply is low and buyers are many, prices rise. But farmers do not control this,” Temilade Olabiyi, Oluyole LGA SWOFON leader said.

She noted that markets like Bodija have more structure. Prices are set through associations, with leaders of different produce groups coordinating rates and deductions.

“At Bodija, each trade has leaders in charge of peppers, onions and others. Alongside overall market leaders, they determine prices and how levies like ground rent and house rent are deducted,” she said.

At Sasa market,  Fausat Adebayo, a trader, described the bulk-buyers and inter-market systems dominated by traders. She said most produce currently comes from the North, especially during the dry season, while rainy-season supply involves intermediaries who purchase from farmers and transport large volumes to market.

“These people may bring three to four truckloads at once,” she said. “Whatever we buy, we sell cheap. We don’t add more than ₦1,000 or ₦1,500 because we want patronage.”

The Iyaloja of Omi-Adio Market, Alhaja Mojisola Latinwo, acknowledged the challenges but offered a different perspective. She said the market handles fast-moving goods with high patronage and minimal spoilage.

“We buy directly from farmers and sell to retailers who sell in baskets. We usually discard the spoiled ones. We don’t have many spoiled ones because they are fast-moving goods.”

Latinwo, however, disputed claims that official levies significantly inflate prices. She said traders pay a flat ₦50 ticket to the local government per market day, regardless of volume, and argued that margins are kept low to ensure quick turnover.

But traders like Raimi insist that this explanation does not reflect what really happens. She said most of the costs that cripple farmers and small-scale traders are imposed before produce reaches the stalls, through middlemen who control access to buyers and prices, and whose charges are neither documented nor regulated.

Latinwo also pointed to poor road conditions as a major contributor to spoilage, particularly during the rainy season, estimating losses at between 10 and 20 percent. According to her, fees collected by market associations are used for drainage and sanitation.

Cold rooms that never exist

For many women farmers, the problem is not just how fast produce reaches the market, but what happens when it gets there. Once tomatoes, peppers, or potatoes arrive, there is nowhere to store them to prevent decay. No cold rooms or preservation centres.

Oluwafolakemi Omidiwura, a lecturer and post-harvest researcher at the University of Ibadan, said this gap quietly shapes the market in ways farmers can hardly control. She explained that middlemen often delay the sale of newly arrived produce until older stock is cleared, even when buyers are willing to purchase fresh goods.

“What I have noticed is that middlemen sometimes delay (the sale of) fresh produce until the rotten ones are sold. The more they delay, the more decay sets in, both in the fresh produce and the already spoiled ones,” she said.

The result, she explained, is that freshness loses its advantage. Farmers who arrive early still lose value, not because demand is absent, but because time is used as leverage against them.

For smallholder women farmers, this absence of storage turns every harvest into a gamble. Once produce leaves the farm, the clock begins to tick. Without cold rooms, farmers must sell immediately, accept whatever price is offered, or watch weeks of labour rot away.

Olabiyi said the panic selling that defines post-harvest trade in Oyo would ease if storage facilities existed. According to her, cold rooms are often discussed in trainings and seminars but remain unachieved in practice.

“As smallholder women farmers, we attended a training organised by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Federal Ministry of Agriculture on vegetable production and reducing post-harvest losses,” Olabiyi said. “We were taught about cold storage, but we were not empowered to acquire one. They told us the training objectives didn’t cover empowerment. It was just theoretical.”

During the training, she said participants were taken to supermarkets and markets to observe how proper storage extends shelf life and improves income.

The contrast was clear. What worked elsewhere remained unavailable to them.

“Having cold storage is capital intensive,” Olabiyi said. “If government provides it, farmers would not rush to sell at ridiculous prices. Middlemen would lose their control because farmers could sell directly to retailers and food prices would stabilise.”

The absence of storage also affects traders and aggregators further up the chain. Emmanuel Akinsoji, who has worked as an aggregator for over 25 years, said delay and heat often destroy value long before produce reaches consumers.

“It should not take up to 24 hours to convey agro-produce from the North to the South, but with bad roads, it can take three days,” he said. “Anything can happen in that time. When heat sets in, decay starts.”

According to him, timing now determines price more than quality. Produce that arrives early in the day can sell for more than double what late arrivals fetch, even when they come from the same farm.

“Sometimes a bag of tomatoes sells for ₦80,000 in the morning. Another arrival in the evening may go for ₦35,000. Not because it is worse, but because time has worked against it,” he said.

Asked about cold storage, Akinsoji laughed. He describeit as something discussed more in policy circles than in practice. He said the absence of preservation methods makes the business volatile, with losses often wiping out gains.

“I experienced this in 2007,” he recalled. “I loaded a J5 vehicle from the North to the South. By the time the goods arrived three days late, most had spoiled. What we realised did not even cover transport costs.”

According to h, many farmers and traders remain in business only because occasional profits help offset earlier losses.

Market leaders also acknowledge the gap. The Iyaloja of Omi-Ad, Alhaja Mojisola Latinwo, said the absence of cold storage remains a regret. She recalled that when Governor Seyi Makinde sought input during the planning of the new ultra-modern Omi-Adio market, cold storage was not raised.

“We did not think about it at the time,” she said. “The market has a fire station, potable water and toilets, but no cold room. Cold storage would have helped reduce spoilage of tomatoes, peppers and other perishables.”

Acing to Latinwo, traders now improvise, sometimes using ice blocks to slow spoilage temporarily, though the method offers little protection.

“If we had cold storage, we could keep produce after each market day and transport it to another market the next morning in good condition,” she said. “That would mean better profit and less waste.”

Doing the most, carrying the loss

The losses do not end at the market gate. They follow women home.

Oluwatoyin Oyedeji, a farmer from Oyo town lamented that women do most of the farming related activities especially from land preparation to transport and market entry but earn the least.

“Farmers are simply working for middlemen who dictate prices,” she said. “We have no way to preserve our produce. Often times, we are under the chokehold of debt since we barely make profit”

At Sasa market, trader Mrs Bolanle Oyelayo said tomatoes and peppers must be sold within a day or two, especially during the rainy season, or losses set in quickly. When that does not happen, Oyelayo said she gets apprehensive about her gain.

“During harmattan, goods may last slightly longer but the rains accelerate spoilage.

She said she has invested about ₦600,000 in her stall, yet decay can wipe out gains overnight adding that once spoilage begins in a basket or crate, it spreads quickly, turning capital into waste.

“Anything beyond a few days leads to losses we can’t quantify. We cover the baskets and leave them in the store. There’s no other way to keep them, because the heat at home would spoil them. The rainy season is the hardest. Post-harvest losses rise sharply. Four crates can shrink to two once the rotten ones are removed, causing huge economic losses.

“When we buy goods today, they must be sold by the next day. Otherwise, we find many ‘Esa’—spoiled ones—inside. Only during harmattan can we keep them for up to a week. We don’t have special storage facilities. We just leave them in the open store and cover them with nylon,” Oyelayo said.

She noted that her store used to be larger, but despite the losses she has incurred, she is grateful to still be in business.

Raimi, a mother of four, said she sometimes loses up to half of her goods.

According to her, the losses affect her household because they eat from the potatoes she sells, especially when her children return from school each day.

“Sometimes it is hard to feed because of spoilage. At such times, I have to ration what I give my children so I can still have some to sell and keep the business going.

“It is from the proceeds that I care for my family and pay my children’s school fees. So when losses are heavy, it becomes difficult to earn a living,” Raimi said.

Akinsoji also noted that due to the uncertainty associated with vegetables, sometimes the entire capital is swallowed up by spoilage.

“At times, some of us don’t even make enough to cover the cost of transporting goods from the farm to the market.

“The losses can be so overwhelming that sometimes it is hard to pay back loans taken from microfinance banks, and that usually affects providing for my family’s needs,” he said.

Why Nigeria keeps losing food after harvest -Experts

The scale and persistence of post-harvest losses raise deeper questions about how Nigeria’s agricultural policies protect smallholder farmers, particularly women, who bear the cost when produce fails to reach consumers in good condition.

Oluwafolakemi Omidiwura, a post-harvest researcher at the University of Ibadan, described post-harvest loss as a structural threat to food availability and affordability. She explained that deterioration begins immediately after harvest and intensifies with time, reducing both nutritional value and marketable volume, especially for fruits and vegetables.

According to her, research estimates show that Nigeria loses as much as 40 per cent of fruits and vegetables after harvest, helping to explain why food prices remain high despite widespread production. She said the losses persist not because solutions are unknown, but because they are unevenly applied across the value chain.

Omidiwura cautioned against reliance on chemical preservatives, noting their potential health and environmental risks. Instead, she pointed to ongoing research into low-cost, electricity-free storage options such as evaporative cooling systems and natural antimicrobial treatments that could extend shelf life for smallholder farmers who lack access to cold storage or reliable power.

She added that while policies and research institutions addressing post-harvest losses exist, implementation remains weak. Without coordinated adoption of safe handling and preservation methods, she warned, losses would continue to undermine food supply in urban markets.

“The issue we have is actually the implementation of these policies. Middlemen contribute to losses through poor packaging, transportation and market practices, and without proper handling across the value chain, the losses that we experience will continue especially in urban food markets.”

A similar concern was raised by Mr John Olateru, the National First Deputy President, All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN). He blamed persistent post-harvest losses on years of policy inertia. He said farmers continue to absorb losses despite frequent conferences and strategy documents, largely because practical support systems remain absent.

Olateru noted that Nigerian farmers operate at a disadvantage globally, relying heavily on manual methods and lacking access to processing and preservation infrastructure. He said this has allowed neighbouring countries to capture value from Nigerian produce, while local farmers lose income at home.

He argued that climate shocks, pests, and disease outbreaks further expose farmers in the absence of functional insurance systems and effective dissemination of research findings. According to him, losses would remain widespread until investments move beyond policy statements into cold-chain infrastructure, processing hubs close to farms, and targeted support that allows farmers to retain control over their produce.

“If even a fraction of what is discussed is implemented,” Olateru said, Nigeria could significantly reduce post-harvest losses and improve food security.

Who really collects market levies?

Women farmers and traders say they pay multiple levies, yet few can clearly explain who collects the money, what each charge is for, or how much is officially approved.

Findings show that many of these levies form part of local government Internally Generated Revenue (IGR). But unlike in the past, when council officials collected the fees directly, much of the process has now been outsourced to private consultants.

According to officials at Akinyele Local Government Area (LGA), who requested anonymity because they lack permission to speak on the matter, contractors now collect market revenues, remit them to the state, and later return a fraction to the councils.

“The state handles most of the IGR on behalf of the local governments, and that is why we are pushing for autonomy,” the officials said.

“Consultants collect the money and pay it to the state, then the state shares some percentage with the LG. I don’t even know the exact breakdown.”

The result is a system where accountability is blurred.

However, s Serifat Fajimi, a land rate officer in Akinyele LGA, said her department collects ground rent based on shop type and location, with fees ranging from ₦1,200 for open stalls to between ₦3,000 and ₦5,000 for locked shops. She said traders are required to pay into the bank and present tellers before receipts are issued.

But this official framework does not apply uniformly across markets.

A senior rate officer in the same local government said several major markets are no longer under the council’s direct collection system. Instead, consultants now handle revenue collection in places such as S

Akinyele Pepper Market, remitting lump sums to the local government after collecting fees from traders.

The official explained that under this arrangement, council officers no longer interface directly with traders, making it difficult to track how much is collected per person or per stall.

“Once consultants take over a market, they collect the money and remit what they are expected to remit. We do not go there to collect again,” he said.

NAN gathered that because it is t easy for officials at both local government and state levels to shortchange the system due to the bureaucracy involved in revenue collection and remittance of IGR, contractors are used for such deals.

It also gathered that contracting levies collection to a third party gives room for corruption and embezzlement. Due to lack of accountability and transparency, this practice has been thriving as both the government officials and contractors are beneficiaries.

An official of the Akinyele Local Government who cannot be named here because of the sensitive nature of the information provided and fear of victimisation said staffers who collect revenue are under bond and there are procedures they must adhere to in collecting receipts and remitting funds. But for the contractors, their case is different because they are often friends of the local government chairmen or the governor and they do not issue receipts.

“They use touts to collect revenue from the market and only pay into the government’s account whatever sharing formula they agreed on.

“Let’s say, you are a friend of Oluyole Local Government chairman and you want to collect the market levies. You will bring your lawyer and a draft agreement and state whatever you will be remitting monthly to the government’s purse.

“In fact, you may meet the target set and you may not but something must be entering the purse; for instance, if you agree to pay in ₦100,000 monthly, you may claim you couldn’t collect much and just pay in ₦60,000.

“Also, there are layers of contractors. The friend of the politician who got the contract will also give it to another person and then at the end it is the touts that will collect the rate.

“But because the government will not release receipts to contractors to use because they may print more or make a counterfeit only staffers in charge of revenue have access to receipt and that also involves about four levels of procedures before any receipts can be released.

“And that is why staffers are usually under bond, they sign serious undertakings, so that they are responsible for any money collected and they must ensure it is remitted into the government’s account. But for contractors nothing of such, once they deliver the amount agreed on they continue to collect levies,” he said.

What the government is doing

The Oyo State government says it is aware of the challenges facing farmers and has begun rolling out interventions aimed at reducing post-harvest losses and strengthening the agricultural value chain.

The Director-General, Oyo State Agribusiness Development Agency (OYSADA), Dr Debo Akande, said the state government has embarked on the construction of about 1,200km feeder roads to improve access to farms and ease the movement of produce to markets and processing centres.

According to him, the roads are part of a broader plan to open up agrarian communities and link farmers to industrial hubs. He said the initiative complements major inter-community roads already built to support agribusiness investments, including routes connecting Ibadan to Fashola in Oyo town, Moniya-Iseyin to Shaki.

Dr. Akande also said the state is establishing aggregation centres in farming communities to allow farmers to store produce temporarily and reduce spoilage. He added that the government has adopted a demand-driven approach, attracting at least 16 medium-scale processing factories between 2019 and 2025.

“These factories now serve as off-takers,” he said. “One cassava processing factory alone works with over 3,000 farmers. For perishables like tomatoes, peppers and bananas, processors are being encouraged to operate closer to production areas.”

According to him, the goal is to reduce waste, stabilise prices, and ensure farmers have predictable markets for their produce.

The Oyo State Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr Olasunkanmi Olaleye, said that the state government is deploying digital platforms, storage infrastructure and market reforms to significantly reduce post-harvest losses across the agricultural value chain.

He said the ministry is developing an Agricultural Information Management System that will include a virtual market, allowing producers to connect directly with consumers and cutting out exploitative middlemen. According to him, middlemen often short-change farmers and contribute to post-harvest losses through poor handling and delayed sales.

Olaleye explained that the virtual market would be interactive and accessible to farmers, noting that most farmers already use mobile phones or can rely on support from their children and extension officers.

“Virtually all farmers are using telephones, and they also have children who are literate,” he said, adding that the ministry has over 100 extension officers across the state who will assist farmers in using the platform,” he said.

The commissioner also disclosed that the state is intensifying efforts to complete a 10,000-metric-tonne silo project to improve storage capacity and reduce spoilage. He said improved road infrastructure across the state has made it easier for produce to move from farms in rural areas to urban centres, further limiting losses caused by poor transportation and delays.

“All these things are in place to eliminate post-harvest losses in Oyo State,” Olaleye said.

On cold storage and logistics, he said the state government, in partnership with the French government through the Rural Access and Agricultural Marketing Project (RAAMP), and World Food Market is constructing agro-logistics centres with warehouses across the state.

He added that modern markets are being built at Ọja Agbe in Iseyin, Ọja Oba in Igboora and Onara, while a major wholesale agri-food market is planned for Ijaye in collaboration with the World Union of Wholesale Markets. The Rungis-style market, he said, is expected to boost agricultural trade, reduce post-harvest losses and enhance food security.

Addressing concerns over market levies, Olaleye said the collection of market charges falls under local governments and traditional authorities, not the state government.

He said the state only collects haulage fees on farm produce and cattle, stressing that it does not engage contractors to collect market levies. “If we receive any information that levies are affecting prices, we will intervene,” he said, adding that price manipulation is often driven by informal middlemen rather than government policies.

This report was made possible with support from the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR) under the Strengthening Public Accountability for Results and Knowledge (SPARK 2.2) project.