In the cool, elevated terrains of the Jos Plateau, a tragedy is currently unfolding that perfectly encapsulates the historical and systemic failure of the Nigerian agricultural sector. We are currently in the peak of the strawberry season, a window running from November to February, where the yield is lush, the sugar content is high, and the potential for profitability should be boundless. Yet, the air on the Plateau does not smell of sweet success; it smells of fermentation and despair.
As a consultant who has studied the Nigerian agricultural landscape for decades, I have observed a recurring motif: the nation possesses an immense capacity to produce, but a crippling inability to distribute. We have built a production engine on a chassis that lacks wheels. The current crisis facing strawberry farmers in Jos, precipitated by the sudden collapse of air cargo logistics, is not merely a local logistical hiccup. It is a damning indictment of a national strategy that prioritized “planting” over “value chain integration.”
The situation in Jos is a microcosm of a macro-economic disaster. While we preach food security, we practice food wastage. We are witnessing a scenario where high-value crops are trapped at the farm gate, destined to rot, while the ultimate consumers in Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt rely on imported concentrates and purees. To understand how we can salvage this, and indeed the future of Nigerian agriculture, we must first dissect the anatomy of this failure and then look toward global benchmarks of success, specifically the FrieslandCampina cooperative model, as a blueprint for salvation.
The Logistics Vacuum: A Runway with No Plane
The immediate trigger for the current crisis is as abrupt as it is catastrophic. For years, the strawberry value chain in Nigeria hung by a single, fragile thread: the cargo hold of commercial airliners, specifically Arik Air. Flying strawberries from Jos to Lagos was never an exercise in economic efficiency, logistics costs frequently outstripped the farm-gate price of the fruit, but it was an exercise in necessity. Strawberries are highly perishable, with a shelf life of one to four days at ambient temperature. Speed is not a luxury; it is a prerequisite for the product to exist.
In October 2025, that thread snapped. Arik Air ceased operations into Jos. ValueJet, the remaining carrier, reportedly declined to carry the cargo, likely due to the risks associated with fluid leakage or the low margins of agricultural freight compared to passenger luggage. Overnight, the strawberry industry lost its only viable bridge to the market.
Critics and observers often ask, “Why not use the road?” This question betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of Nigeria’s infrastructure and the biological reality of the fruit. The road network from Jos to the major markets in the South is not merely a transportation route; it is a gauntlet.
To move fresh strawberries by road requires a cold chain that remains unbroken for 24 to 48 hours. It requires shock-absorbing suspension to prevent bruising. It requires free-flowing traffic. The reality of the Nigerian road network offers none of these. Farmers attempting this route have resorted to Styrofoam boxes packed with ice, an additional input cost. Yet, they face a “controlled disaster.” Between the heat pockets that form as ice melts, the physical damage from pothole-riddled highways, and the agonizing delays at innumerable checkpoints, losses average between 20% and 30%.
Furthermore, we cannot analyze transport without addressing the elephant in the room: Insecurity. The roads leading out of the Plateau, particularly through the North Central zone towards the South, are fraught with peril. Kidnapping and banditry have turned logistics management into a game of Russian roulette. Drivers are reluctant to ply these routes, and when they do, they charge a “risk premium” that erodes any potential profit.
The failure of the rail system further compounds this misery. In a functioning economy, the railway would be the backbone of agricultural transport, offering a middle ground between the speed of air and the cost of road. However, the Nigerian Railway Corporation’s current infrastructure is insufficient for sensitive cold-chain logistics, leaving farmers with zero viable alternatives.
The Economic Consequence: Importing What We Let Rot
The economic implications of this logistical blockade are severe. We are looking at a peak harvest potential of 15 to 30 tons per hectare. If Plateau State produces approximately 700 tons this season, and we conservatively estimate a 50% loss due to lack of movement, we are looking at 350 tons of food rotting within a 120-day window.
This is where the tragedy turns into an economic farce. By April, when the rot is complete and the season is over, supermarkets and industrial food processors in Lagos will place orders for strawberry puree, concentrate, and jam. These orders will not go to Jos; they will go to Europe, South Africa, or Asia. Nigeria will deplete its foreign exchange reserves to import a product that it grew in abundance but lacked the intelligence to transport.
This is the definition of a Balance of Trade deficit driven by inefficiency. We are not importing because we cannot grow; we are importing because we cannot move. The farmer in Jos is currently asking the most heartbreaking question in agriculture: “Should I harvest, or let it rot so the loss impact is smaller?” When the cost of harvesting and failed transport exceeds the cost of walking away, the rational economic decision is to let the crop die. That is not just a loss of fruit; it is a loss of national wealth and a deterrent to future investment.
The FrieslandCampina Benchmark: The Power of Aggregation
To solve this, we must look beyond the immediate panic and analyze structural solutions. The most compelling model for Nigeria’s fragmented agricultural sector is found in the dairy fields of the Netherlands: FrieslandCampina as detailed by Prof. Ndubuisi Ekekwe in his piece titled “From Fragmentation to Scale: Using FrieslandCampina Playbook for Abia Shoemakers published in Tekedia,com
According to Prof. Ekekwe, FrieslandCampina is a multinational dairy cooperative with annual revenues exceeding $13 billion. However, it is not a corporate monolith in the traditional sense; it is owned by the farmers. The genius of this model lies in “aggregation economics.”
In the Nigerian context, our strawberry farmers are operating like the solitary Dutch farmers of a century ago. One produces two baskets; another produces five. Individually, they are invisible to the global market. They cannot negotiate freight rates with an airline because they lack volume leverage. They cannot build a blast freezer because they lack capital. They cannot dictate prices to off-takers because they are desperate to sell before rot sets in.
The FrieslandCampina model inverts this dynamic. By organizing small producers into a collective, the cooperative achieves several critical things:
1. Standardization: Every liter of milk (or kilogram of strawberry) meets a specific quality metric.
2. Shared Infrastructure: The cooperative funds the processing plants and logistics fleets that no single farmer could afford.
3. Market Power: The cooperative negotiates with retailers and logistics providers as a giant, not a beggar.
If the strawberry farmers of Jos were organized into a true cooperative, not just an association on paper, but a business entity with pooled assets, the conversation with the aviation industry would change. A cooperative representing 700 tons of guaranteed freight can charter its own cargo plane. They would not be begging ValueJet for space; they would be leasing an aircraft or contracting a logistics firm to run a dedicated “Berry Lift.”
The Blind Spot of Value Addition
The commentary surrounding the crisis often pivots to a popular buzzword: “Value Addition.” Suggestions to dry the strawberries, turn them into jam, or make juices are theoretically sound. Indeed, processing is the ultimate hedge against perishability. Dried strawberries have a shelf life of 6 to 12 months. Jams last for years.
However, as a consultant, I must inject a dose of realism. You cannot build a processing industry overnight in response to a logistics failure. Processing requires:
* Capital Expenditure (CapEx): Industrial dehydrators and blast freezers are expensive.
* Energy Security: In a country with erratic power supply, running a cold storage or dehydration facility requires massive diesel generators, which again drives up the unit cost.
* Technical Expertise: Producing export-grade dried fruit requires precise moisture control and packaging standards that go beyond simple sun-drying.
While value addition is the long-term solution, it does not solve the problem of the fruit currently hanging on the vine. Furthermore, the “fresh” market usually commands a premium over the processed market. A robust agricultural sector needs both. We should process what we cannot sell fresh, not process everything because we are incompetent at logistics.
Comprehensive Solutions: Bridging the Gap
To move from “planting pride and harvesting loss” to a sustainable industry, we must implement a multi-layered strategy involving immediate intervention and long-term structural reform.
1. The Immediate Tactical Response (Saving the Season)
* The Charter Solution: As suggested by the FrieslandCampina model, the farmers must immediately aggregate. If 50 farmers contribute to a logistics fund, they can charter a smaller cargo aircraft or a dedicated cargo run from a private operator twice a week. This bypasses the commercial passenger airline limitations.
* The Abuja Corridor: While risky, the road to Abuja is shorter than the road to Lagos. A coordinated “convoy system” with security escorts (paid for by the cooperative) could move produce to the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja, where air connectivity to Lagos and Port Harcourt is more frequent and reliable.
2. The Medium-Term Strategy (Infrastructure & Processing)
* Cooperative Cold Chain: The farmers must form a cooperative specifically to access the Bank of Industry (BOI) or CBN agricultural funds. The goal: purchase solar-powered cold storage trucks. Unlike standard trucks, these maintain the cold chain on the road. Solar integration mitigates the diesel cost.
* Low-Tech Preservation: While industrial factories take time, the deployment of solar-powered dehydration tents can be rapid. This allows farmers to salvage “untransportable” berries and turn them into dried snacks, creating a secondary revenue stream that is non-perishable.
3. The Long-Term Structural Fix (Policy & Investment)
* Specialized Ag-Logistics Incentives: The government must recognize that food security is logistics security. We need tax breaks or subsidies specifically for aviation fuel (Jet A1) used for agricultural cargo. If we subsidize petrol for cars, why not fuel for food transport?
* Private Sector Integration: We need to court players like Dangote or BUA, not just for cement and sugar, but for cold-chain logistics. A private sector player with deep pockets could install a processing plant in Jos, acting as the primary off-taker (The FrieslandCampina role), thereby guaranteeing the market for the farmers.
The rotting strawberries on the Jos Plateau are not just a tragedy for the farmers; they are a warning sign for the Nigerian economy. We are failing the test of modernization. We have mastered the art of the harvest, but we have failed the science of the supply chain.
The FrieslandCampina story teaches us that small farmers are not helpless if they are united. The path forward is not to wait for Arik Air to return or for the roads to magically heal. The path forward is aggregation, cooperative investment in shared infrastructure, and a relentless focus on controlling the value chain from the farm gate to the supermarket shelf.
If we do not address this now, the 350 tons of rotting fruit in Jos will be the manure that fertilizes our continued dependency on imports. We must decide if we want a strawberry industry, or if we are content with merely having a strawberry season.
*Prof. Sarumi, a Digital Transformation enthusiast, writes from Lagos.