The Federal Government has embarked on measures to reduce the N2 trillion spent on importing food into Nigeria.
Statistician General of the Federation, Semiu Adeniran, who disclosed this at a workshop in Abuja, said the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war has led to high food prices and high cost of logistics.
“Also, within the country, we have food that we produce but it is difficult to move them to where it is needed. That also spurred increase in prices. Government is also working on that. You can see that we are getting some succour from the Russian/Ukrainian war.
“Ukraine is being allowed now to be able to move some of their products to other parts of the world, which I feel will have impact as well,” he said.
Despite the Federal Government’s efforts to boost local food production, Nigeria still spent N2 trillion importing food in 2021. The amount represents an increase of 66.67% over the 2020 food import bill of N1.2 trillion.
In 2019, the country imported N959 billion worth of food, accounting for 5.66 per cent of total imports. It imported N857.6 billion and N886.8 billion worth of food in 2018 and 2017 respectively.
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