Despite being touted as the food basket of Africa, Nigeria has spent over 7.8 trillion naira in the past six years on food import.
The staggering sum, experts say, is a clear demonstration that the Nigerian government is yet to put the nation on the right path of eradicating hunger by 2030 as stipulated by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, over 1.9 trillion naira worth of food imports business transactions were conducted in 2022 as against the 2 trillion naira expended on food importation in 2021.
In 2020, the country imported 1.2 trillion naira worth of agricultural products and imported over 959 billion naira food products in 2019. Nigeria also imported 857.6 billion naira and 886.8 billion naira worth of food products in 2018 and 2017 respectively.
Meanwhile, Nigeria’s food import bill has been on the rise in recent years. In 2022, a total of 1.9 trillion naira worth of food products were imported into the country. The value of food imports in the second quarter of 2022 stood at 464.45 billion naira, showing an increase when compared to the value recorded in the previous quarter.
The high food import bill is a concern for Nigeria’s economy. The country has a large agricultural sector, and there have been efforts to boost local production to reduce the dependence on food imports. However, factors such as inadequate infrastructure, insecurity, and climate change have hindered progress in the sector.
