Two years into President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration, food insecurity has persisted despite recent decreases in prices.
According to the UN World Food Programme, 18.6 million Nigerians are food insecure.
“Conflict and insecurity, rising inflation and the impact of the climate crisis continue to drive hunger in Nigeria – with 26.5 million people across the country projected to face acute hunger in the June-August 2024 lean season. This is a staggering increase from the 18.6 million people food insecure at the end of 2023,” it said in its 2024 report.
Farmers have been sacked by terrorists and herders across Nigeria, with several food-belt states seeing some of the worst cases. Two million farmers in Benue were sacked last year.
Attahiru Bafarawa, former Sokoto State governor, recounted in 2024 how bandits made him abandon his 10,000 hectares of land in Kaduna State.
“I used to have farmland, which is over 10,000 hectares in Birni Gwari of Kaduna State. I have been cultivating that land since 1979, but I cannot reach there now because of the bandits.
“The maize I produced that time is in commercial quantity that, I used part of it for my flour mill which is also out of production. The issue of insecurity is behind the high cost of food items because many farmers have been displaced,” the former governor told journalists.
It is not entirely Tinubu’s fault as the crisis preceded his administration. More than 1,356 farmers in northern Nigeria lost their lives to banditry attacks between 2020 and 2024, an SMB Intelligence report said.
However, farmers are worried that the current government has not addressed the issue of insecurity.
This year alone, there have been killings in Benue, Plateau, and Zamfara – key crop-growing states. These have sparked concerns about a new wave of food price hikes and compounding the plight of farmers already battling high input costs and climate-related issues.
Ibrahim Kabiru, president of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), said the recent insecurity issues in key food-producing states of Benue, Plateau, and Zamfara will disrupt the country’s food production and a spike in prices.
“The respite Nigerians have experienced in food prices will be upturn with these recent attacks on farmers and farming communities,” Kabiru said.
He projected the country’s food prices to start surging in July, noting that the continuous attacks have made farmers apprehensive.
Food inflation is still high at 21.36 percent and poverty is high.
Alex Sienaert, World Bank lead economist, said in May that the government has an ambitious targeted cash transfer programme , but regretted that the implementation has been quite slow.
Read also: FG boosts agriculture with new irrigation projects across Zamfara, Kebbi, Sokoto states
Food prices decline
Though prices of food items are still high, they have relatively declined. As of last year, a 50kg bag of rice sold for N105,000 to N120,000, but this has declined to N80,000-N85,000.
A big basket of fresh tomatoes dropped 70 percent in Lagos since February from an average of N120,000 to N35,000. In 2024 Nigerians could not afford to buy tomatoes owing to the price surge that forced consumers to opt for alternatives like banga, paste combined with dried pepper and beetroot.
Key achievements
The Tinubu government launched a dry season farming programme recently, with a view to cultivating 118,657 hectares of wheat in 15 states. It resulted in an output of 474,628 metric tons of wheat. Jigawa State exceeded its allocated target by 15,000 hectares.
The government also released 42,000 metric tons of assorted food commodities to vulnerable populations and procured and distributed 58,500 metric tons of milled rice to all states.
The Tinubu administration has implemented initiatives such as the National Agricultural Growth Scheme and Agro Pocket (NAGS-AP), National Agribusiness Policy Mechanism (NAPM), and the resuscitation of the National Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA) to strengthen productivity and address sector challenges.
The president equally approved the duty-free importation of major food items like rice, beans and wheat, to cushion the impact of the high food prices.
