Nigeria’s Cold Storage Capacity Falls Far Short of 11m-Tonne Demand
Nigeria faces a major cold storage deficit, with an estimated 11 million tonnes of perishable produce requiring preservation facilities but less than 20,000 tonnes of long-term storage capacity available, stakeholders have said. Speaking at the 10th Sustainability Table Series in Lagos, themed “Feeding the Future: Resilient Food Systems, Smarter Value Chains & Cold-Chain Infrastructure,” Managing Director of Mystrose Agro Commodities Ltd and NovaChill, Babatunde Niran-Aluko, said developing cold storage at scale requires at least £600 per tonne. He cited Sokoto’s annual onion production of about 400,000 tonnes as an example of the need, noting that his ongoing 20,000-tonne facility in the state could preserve produce for eight to 10 months and reduce losses to five per cent, but remained small compared with national demand. Niran-Aluko said his target was to build 500,000 tonnes of capacity, adding that the country would still need far more investment to close the gap. He also advocated working with cooperatives and aggregators rather than individual farmers and said government subsidies might be necessary to keep storage affordable.
Country Director of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, Dr Michael Ojo, said cold-chain infrastructure required patient, long-term capital, arguing that short-term financing from banks and investors was inadequate to address the challenge. He called for development finance institutions to help structure viable investment models and urged Nigeria to strengthen the entire food system, including aggregation, logistics, processing, market access and nutrition. Founder of Century 21 Foundation, Princess Kemdi Chika-Okafor, advocated decentralized, solar-powered cold storage hubs near food aggregation centers and markets, with pay-as-you-go fees to make the facilities accessible to smallholder farmers and traders. Meanwhile, National President of the National Onion Producers, Processors and Marketers Association, Aliyu Isah, said storage investment must be supported by access to suitable seed varieties, fertilizer, chemicals, mechanization and irrigation. He also called for shared facilities for cleaning, sorting, grading and packaging, warning that the shortage of sorting machines was limiting farmers’ access to markets.
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