FG Partners AGFAN to revive groundnut economy

Samuel Edward

The Federal Government has entered a partnership with the National Association of Groundnut Farmers, Processors and Marketers of Nigeria (AgFAN) to bring groundnuts back as an engine of jobs and growth. AgFAN, which says it can mobilise 400,000 members across 24 states, will work with officials to upgrade seeds and extension services, strengthen storage and processing, and connect farmers to finance and markets. The push is framed as a revival of a former export pillar, with higher output and farmer incomes as early targets.

The groundnut pyramids were towering stacks of bagged nuts—sometimes 15,000 sacks—erected in Kano and other northern cities from the 1910s through the 1960s. Pioneered by traders including Alhassan Dantata, they served as storage and a bold marketing symbol, appearing on stamps and pulling visitors from afar. In the 1950s and 1960s groundnuts were Nigeria’s most valuable single export, financing infrastructure and foreign exchange. The pyramids vanished by the 1970s and 1980s as oil eclipsed agriculture, drought and disease bit yields, and marketing boards collapsed. They remain a potent memory of peak agribusiness—and a reference point for revival talk today.