Earlier this 12 months, I sounded an alarm, warning that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s ill-advised coverage shift in direction of open border insurance policies and meals importation risked “Reversing Nigeria’s meals safety beneficial properties of the final 20 years.”
At present, I have to improve that warning to a nationwide disaster alarm. The worst fears of Nigerian agricultural stakeholders are now not hypothetical; they’re a devastating actuality enjoying out throughout our farming communities and full meals worth chain.
In only one 12 months, the wrongly suggested meals imports and open border insurance policies of President Ahmed Bola Tinubu have begun to systematically dismantle the exceptional meals manufacturing and safety beneficial properties Nigeria achieved over the past 20 years, notably underneath Presidents Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari. That progress, constructed on deliberate insurance policies of import restriction, catalyzed billions of Naira in private-sector funding, pulling hundreds of thousands of smallholder farmers out of utmost poverty.
The present authorities’s acknowledged goal to scale back the rising value of meals for bizarre Nigerians is laudable, however its chosen technique is an {economic} and social catastrophe. By granting sponsored import licenses to a privileged few to flood the market with low-cost grains—like rice, maize, and soybeans–from international locations that closely subsidize their very own manufacturing, the administration has inadvertently declared conflict by itself over 35 million smallholder farmers.
The argument that “middlemen” are solely liable for excessive meals costs is an empty fallacy, a handy narrative pushed by highly effective capitalists who stand to revenue immensely from the import concession.
They failed to inform the President the reality: the true driver of rising meals prices was the elemental {economic} shocks of the gasoline subsidy removing and the alternate charge coverage unification.
These insurance policies, for example, pushed the price of farm inputs like a 50kg bag of urea from underneath N18,000 in 2022 to over N30,000 in 2024, non-selective herbicide costs from underneath N4,000 to over N6,000 and plenty of different farm inputs. The rise in meals costs was a direct, predictable response to elevated operational prices, similar to each different sector of the Nigerian financial system.
The results of the president`s coverage route in direction of meals imports and open borders are swift and brutal. Over 35 million rural smallholder farmers–the spine of our meals system are being pushed again into excessive poverty.
For example, in 2023, our firm, Hemam Synergy, paid the rice farmers we supported about N550,000 per ton of rice paddy, producing vital earnings for the over 30,000 rice farmers we supported that 12 months. At present, in 2025, those self same farmers are incomes lower than N250,000 per ton–a devastating 120% drop in earnings for these farmers.
That is even because the manufacturing prices for these farmers surged by over 30% in 2025. What this implies is that these farmers are unable to recuperate their prices of cultivation. With no honest worth, hundreds of thousands of farmers will abandon their farmlands subsequent season, guaranteeing a deeper, long-term meals disaster.
Furthermore, a number of Agribusinesses are Shutting Down. Tons of of billions of personal capital invested throughout the agricultural worth chains are being pulled again. From built-in rice mills (which grew from lower than 10 to over 268 over the previous 20 years) to soybean crushers, animal feed mills, and processing vegetation–agribusinesses that created tens of 1000’s of jobs at the moment are struggling, cutting down, or shutting store totally.
The sector’s danger profile has soared, proving the long-held skepticism of buyers appropriate: that coverage inconsistency stays the best risk to the Nigerian agriculture sector.
The largest concern is that Nigeria`s Nationwide Meals Safety is in danger. We’re threading the trail again to changing into a food-import-dependent nation, jeopardizing our meals sovereignty. The surge of low-cost, and sometimes unwholesome, imported and smuggled grains undermines public well being and {economic} stability concurrently. Nigeria’s progress, which noticed annual paddy manufacturing rise from 5.5 million tons in 2005 to over 9 million tons, and maize from 5.56 million tons to over 11 million tons, is being casually sacrificed.
We strongly advise that President Tinubu instantly revisit the trail of nationwide meals safety that guided the nation for the previous 15 years. To convey down meals costs sustainably, the federal government should undertake the confirmed methods of the very nations from which we at the moment are importing:
Mr. President, the present meals import and open border coverage of your administration, though with its good and real intent, is a short-term palliative that ensures long-term nationwide meals insecurity and a socio-economic disaster for over 35 million of your residents. The collapse of native agriculture is not going to solely destabilize the financial system however may push the voting energy of Nigeria’s rural poor in opposition to your present administration within the subsequent presidential elections.
The selection is obvious: can Nigeria proceed to counterpoint a handful of import-focused capitalists on the expense of hundreds of thousands of native farmers, nationwide jobs, and our very meals safety? Or can we return to the deliberate, intentional path of constructing a strong, self-sufficient, and affluent Nigerian agricultural sector? The time to decide on nationwide safety over quick palliative reduction and comfort is now.
President Tinubu nonetheless has time to behave. The trail to meals sovereignty isn’t by dependency — it’s by deliberate funding in our individuals, our land, and our manufacturing programs.
If Nigeria fails to behave now, we danger returning to the darkish years when over 70% of the meals we consumed was imported. That will not solely cripple our financial system — it will compromise our nationwide safety and sovereignty.
The alarm bells are ringing. This isn’t nearly farmers — it’s about the way forward for Nigeria.
Michael is the Managing Director of Hemam Synergy Ltd
An Agribusiness firm supporting over 50,000 rural smallholder farmers with inputs, photo voltaic irrigation programs and market entry. Michael might be reached at [email protected]
