Stakeholders push to reposition Nigeria’s rubber market

Chairman, Board of Trustees of the Federation of Agricultural Commodity Associations of Nigeria (FACAN), Dr. Victor Iyama, has said the country has the potential to increase its contribution of rubber to global supply if efforts are made to modernise production systems and upgrade the value chain.

According to him, the sector must redefine how rubber is produced, processed, and traded in order to move beyond stagnant volumes toward a more diversified, sustainable, and higher-value industry structure.

“The industry has the capacity to expand global output if we modernise production and invest in value addition. Nigeria must shift from exporting largely raw materials to building a competitive, value-driven rubber economy,” Iyama said.

He noted that the industry is facing several structural pressures, making transformation unavoidable. Accelerating downstream manufacturing, strengthening traceability, and embracing more technology-intensive production systems will be critical to ensuring long-term resilience and competitiveness.

Iyama added that while the country continues to export raw and semi-processed rubber, greater emphasis must be placed on stabilising supply and improving productivity, particularly by supporting farmers who are replanting ageing trees largely with their own resources.

Despite its modest global standing, Nigeria still maintains a significant domestic rubber economy. Production occurs mainly in Edo, Delta, and Ondo states and currently generates about $80.7 million in annual export earnings. However, the country’s potential far exceeds its present output.

Nigeria has about 18 million hectares of land classified as suitable for rubber cultivation, yet only about 200,000 hectares—just 1.1 percent of that land—are currently under production.

The scale of this gap, and the economic opportunities it represents in terms of jobs, export earnings, and industrial capacity, formed the central focus of a two-day National Rubber Roundtable organised by the Rubber Research Institute of Nigeria (RRIN) in partnership with Xadaney Consults Ltd.The meeting, held  recently at RRIN’s conference hall in Iyanomo, Benin City,  brought together policymakers, estate and smallholder farmers, academics, private-sector operators, development partners, and state commissioners of agriculture.Participants delivered a blunt diagnosis of the sector’s decline.

They cited decades of policy neglect, the dominance of the oil economy, ageing plantations, weak infrastructure, and minimal domestic processing capacity as the key factors that have eroded Nigeria’s competitiveness in global rubber markets. One of the most pressing structural challenges is the ageing plantation base.

Director-General, Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC), Pro Nnanyelugo Ike-Muonso, warned that more than 80 per cent of  existing  rubber plantations consist of ageing trees that have not been replaced.

“More than 90 percent of the rubber produced in Nigeria is exported as primary raw materialWithout urgent investment in replanting and processing, Nigeria will remain marginal in global rubber trade,” Muonso told delegates.

He urged stakeholders to adopt a policy that ensures at least 30 percent value addition before export, arguing that such a measure would help the country capture higher prices in international markets.

Muonso also pointed to rising global demand for natural rubber—particularly from the electric vehicle industry, medical equipment manufacturers, and food packaging companies—as a strategic opportunity Nigeria must not miss.

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Another structural barrier repeatedly highlighted during the roundtable is the long gestation period required for rubber cultivation. Rubber trees typically take between five and seven years before they can be commercially tapped, a delay that discourages new entrants and limits youth participation in the sector.

The result is an ageing farming population managing ageing plantations, with limited generational renewal.

To address this challenge, stakeholders endorsed the adoption of Rubber Agroforestry Systems (RAS) as a national production model.

Under the approach, farmers would intercrop rubber plantations with food crops such as cassava, maize, yam, and plantain during the immature phase of the trees. This would generate income and strengthen food security while farmers wait for rubber trees to reach maturity.

Conservation Director, World Wide Fund for Nature in Cameroon, Dr. Ebenezar Asaah, described agroforestry as both an economic and ecological solution. “Combining rubber trees with crops or livestock can improve farm income, support climate resilience, and make rubber cultivation more attractive to women and young farmers,” Asaah said.

He stressed that clear policy incentives are necessary to encourage long-term investments in tree crops.

On the research front, RRIN has already made progress in developing improved planting materials. The institute’s Executive Director, Dr. Lelia N. Dongo, told participants that researchers have developed improved rubber clones capable of reducing the gestation period from eight years to about five years.She urged policymakers to match scientific progress with policy action. “We must move beyond rhetoric and transform rubber from a mere commodity into a pillar of Nigeria’s industrialisation,” Dongo said. Agriculture Coordinator for Rubber at Okomu Oil Palm Company Plc, Mr. Micky Francis, described the trend as economically counterproductive. “Nigeria exports raw rubber and imports finished rubber products. The first goal should be self-sufficiency—meeting our domestic demand through local production and processing,” Francis said.Smallholder farmers, who contribute roughly 17 percent of s semi-processed technically specified rubber output, face particular challenges within the current system.

Francis called for government support through subsidised clone seedlings, improved farm security, and stronger institutional backing for processing investments. Prof Chux Gervase Iwu of the University of the Western Cape in South Africa identified decentralised processing infrastructure as a key solution.

He proposed the establishment of clustered processing centres located close to plantation zones to reduce logistics costs and encourage local processing. “Processing centres near plantations can unlock industrial capacity and stimulate value chain growth,” he said, noting that public-private partnerships would be essential to finance such infrastructure. The roundtable therefore endorsed the creation of a Youth Entrepreneurship Framework in the Rubber Value Chain. The framework would prioritise entry points such as nursery management and the production of budded rubber stumps, which offer quicker financial returns compared with waiting years for plantation harvests. Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, underscored the strategic importance of rubber in his keynote address. “Rubber is a strategic national asset with more than 400 industrial applications,” he said, urging stakeholders to align the sector’s revival with the Federal Government’s Renewed Hope Agenda and to prioritise climate-smart production systems, agroforestry, and value addition. State commissioners of agriculture from Cross River, Abia, Ogun, Osun, and Kwara also acknowledged declining rubber activity in their jurisdictions and pledged to introduce new incentives to stimulate investment.

For more than a decade, Nigeria’s natural rubber industry has been trapped in a quiet crisis—not of sudden collapse, but of persistent stagnation. Since 2013, the country’s annual output has hovered between 140,000 and 160,000 metric tons, leaving Nigeria ranked 13th globally and responsible for barely one percent of the world’s rubber supply. In 2022, production reached only 149,000 metric tons, a figure almost unchanged from levels recorded decades ago and far below global leaders such as Thailand, which produces nearly 5.3 million metric tons annually. Yet industry stakeholders argued that Nigeria possesses the natural resource base to significantly expand its role in the global rubber economy if structural reforms are pursued across production, processing, and trade.