As Nigeria faces the interconnected pressures of food insecurity, climate change, and rural poverty, a transformative UK-funded programme is working to reshape the country’s agricultural landscape.

Smallholder farmers make up over 80% of Nigeria’s farming population and form the backbone of the country’s food system, producing more than 90% of the food consumed nationally. Despite this critical role, they face a complex web of challenges that limit productivity, profitability, and resilience.

Erratic rainfall, rising temperatures, and land degradation are shrinking harvests and increasing food insecurity. Farmers lack access to climate-resilient technologies and early warning systems to prepare them against climate shocks. Low yields due to poor-quality seeds, inadequate fertiliser, and outdated farming practices mean less food is produced, driving up prices through scarcity, and throwing millions of the country’s poorest into deeper levels of poverty.

Propcom+, a £95 million initiative supported through the UK’s International Climate Finance, is helping Nigeria’s smallholder farmers adapt to climate change by redefining how rural economies grow, connect, and thrive.

Now in its third year, Propcom+, which is managed by Palladium, is delivering large-scale impact in some of the most underserved regions of Nigeria, where livelihoods are heavily dependent on agriculture but remain highly vulnerable to shocks.

The programme’s goal is to increase the incomes and resilience of nearly 4 million poor and climate-vulnerable Nigerians, half of them women, through a unique blend of climate-smart interventions, market systems development, and policy reform. To achieve this, the team works alongside private sector partners to improve food security, enhance climate resilience and protect nature, and tackle some of Nigeria’s underlying drivers of conflict and insecurity.

“We’re working to shift entire market systems so that farmers and rural entrepreneurs have not just better access to tools and technologies, but a stronger, more resilient foundation for long-term growth,” explains Propcom+’s Country Representative, Adiya Ode.

A Legacy of Innovation

Propcom+ builds on the work of the earlier Propcom Mai-karfi programme, which began piloting new models for agricultural trade and inclusive growth in 2013. Over the course of a decade, Propcom Mai-karfi impacted more than 1.4 million farmers across Nigeria and catalysed £10 million in additional income for rural households and private sector partners.

That laid the foundation for today’s expanded programme, Propcom+. Since its launch, Propcom+ has already enabled over 536,000 people, nearly half of them women, to adapt to climate impacts through access to improved inputs such as climate-adapted seeds and practices, organic fertilisers, as well as climate-smart farming and post-harvest technologies adapted to smallholder needs, with digital extension services.

Using a systems-based approach to address structural challenges in Nigeria’s food and land-use systems, the programme leverages three key focus areas.
The first looks to scale up climate-smart agriculture and post-harvest technologies that boost productivity, reduce losses, and support climate adaptation for millions of smallholder farmers and rural entrepreneurs.

Climate smart agriculture increases production of more and better food to improve nutrition and boost incomes, enhances resilience to climate shocks like erratic weather patterns, and seeks to lower emissions for each calorie or kilo of food produced.

The second prong involves testing and piloting new business models that integrate nature-positive approaches, lower emissions, and improve nutrition outcomes, especially in fragile and conflict-prone settings.

And alongside these efforts, the team is supporting the Nigerian government to create an enabling policy environment that fosters sustainable land use, climate adaptation, and inclusive agricultural development.

This systems-focused approach has led to meaningful policy wins, with 13 new policy actors (government and policymakers) supported, eight regulatory changes delivered, and 38 concrete actions taken to advance reforms, all within the past year.

Year 3 Reflections and Looking Ahead

Despite persistent macroeconomic security challenges in Nigeria, Propcom+ has performed exceptionally, earning an A+ rating in its latest Annual Review from the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), a score that reflects not only effective delivery, but clear evidence of impact.

“It’s encouraging to see how adaptive management has enabled us to stay on track,” says Adiya Ode. “By maintaining a flexible, locally-responsive approach, we’ve been able to navigate political shifts, climate volatility, and economic uncertainty. All without losing momentum.”

With five years remaining, Propcom+ is well set up to scale its efforts across even more communities, delivering measurable improvements in incomes, nutrition, and ecological resilience. Its goal is clear: to enable 3.79 million Nigerians to not only withstand climate shocks, but to thrive within more sustainable, productive, and equitable rural markets.

“We’re laying the groundwork for long-term, systemic change,” Ode reflects.

“If Nigeria’s rural economies are going to survive and flourish in a climate-constrained future, it will be through approaches like this. Locally grounded, climate-smart, and market-driven.”