Food Imports Hit ₦‎3 Trillion Over Flooding, Insecurity – CBN

The fall in food inflation on a month-on-month basis was caused by a fall in the rate of increase in the average prices of yam, water yam, Irish potatoes (under potatoes, yam & other tubers class), beer, local beer (under tobacco class), Milo, Bournvita, Nescafe (under coffee, tea, and Coco Class), groundnut oil, palm oil (under oil and fats class), egg, fresh milk, powdered milk, tin milk (under milk, cheese, and eggs class), soft drinks e.g. Malt Guinness, Coco-cola, etc, spirit (local production), Chelsea, Seaman Schnapps (under Spirit Class), Wine and Fruit e.g., Water Melon, Pineapple, Banana, Pawpaw, etc.

“The average annual rate of Food inflation for the twelve-month ending April 2024 over the previous twelve-month average was 32.74 per cent, which was a 9.52 per cent points increase from the average annual rate of change recorded in April 2023 (23.22 per cent) .”

Commenting on the issue, the National President of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria, Kabir Ibrahim, stated that Nigeria had never claimed to be entirely free from imports; rather, we have only achieved freedom from importing certain items.

He also projected that the figure would likely increase this year due to the continued dependence on food importation.

Kabir said, “If you look at the regime we came out of on the dependence of importation and the numbers before that 2023 figure. We spent more on food importation before 2015 but between 2016 and 2021, the figure dropped from our observations. However, it went up in 2022 and 2023 and I am fearful that the figure may be higher this year because you can see the challenges that we have been facing due to insecurity, flooding and other challenges of the purchasing power of farmers.

“Nigeria has never boasted of being free from import, we have only been free from import of some items. We tried to draw a line between things that had no sufficiency and those we had seen as insufficient. All the cries you see about food unavailability and not being affordable may even become more serious between July and September when we are in the thick part of the farming season and we would have finished harvest from the previous farming season and that is when things get very critical.”

On his part, the Managing Director, of the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise, Professor Yusuf Muda, advocated for verifiable data to differentiate between total food consumption and the expenditure on food imports.

The economist stressed, “We need to know what kind of food is being imported. If they are talking about things like wheat, then that is justified because we make bread, flour, spaghetti and noodles from wheat. We also have to get the total amount of food consumed yearly. What percentage of it is imported and what is produced in the country? That data is needed to compare and make correct assumptions on it.”