Abstract

Benue State, Nigeria's Food Basket, plays a pivotal role in national food security, producing 70% of the nation's sorghum, 65% of its soyabeans (approximately 450,000 metric tonnes annually), and substantial quantities of yams, cassava, rice, oranges, and mangoes annually. Agricultural activities constitute over 75 percent of the GDP in Benue State, with over 6 million inhabitants. Despite this agricultural abundance, the absence of timely, granular data has historically hindered effective policy planning and crisis response. This gap became critically apparent during the 2023 sorghum price crisis, when prices tripled within six weeks, threatening over 100,000 smallholder households before any formal statistical intervention could respond.

To address this challenge, the Benue State Bureau of Statistics (BSBS), in partnership with the Benue Farmers and Traders Protection and Development Association (BFTPDA), launched Nigeria’s first subnational real-time agricultural market information system. This digital public infrastructure integrates official statistics with grassroots data collection through a decentralized network of 347 trained farmer-traders across 23 local government areas. Using mobile applications and biometric-linked digital waybills, the system is designed to capture daily commodity prices, transaction volumes, logistics flows, and storage levels. A cloud-based architecture enables real-time aggregation and validation, reducing data processing time from weeks to under 24 hours.

The system’s impact is targeted at incidents like the August 2023 price shock, where real-time data would reveal the underlying causes of scarcity, prompting targeted interventions that stabilize prices within the short term and preserve household purchasing power. Beyond crisis response, the platform will enhance market transparency, reduce transaction costs, and enable environmental monitoring through data on fertilizer use and land conversion.

This system demonstrates how subnational statistical systems, when empowered with digital tools and community partnerships, can evolve from passive data collectors to proactive agents of agricultural resilience. The Benue model offers a scalable blueprint for other regions facing similar data constraints, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. It underscores the strategic importance of investing in interoperable, trust-based data ecosystems to support sustainable agri-food systems in the digital age.