The Federal Government has announced plans to ameliorate food inflation in the country through a 150-day duty-free import window for food commodities and suspension of duties, tariffs, and taxes for the importation of certain food commodities (through land and sea borders), which include maize, husked brown rice, wheat, and cowpeas.
The Minister of Agriculture, Abubakar Kyari disclosed that the move is part of the decision of the Presidential Economic Coordination Council (PECC), constituted by President Bola Tinubu in March 2024, under which the Economic Management Team (EMT) presented an Accelerated Stabilization and Advancement Plan to the President.
“We have heard the cries of Nigeria over the prices of food items and condiments, with some now describing tomatoes as gold and proposing a variety of recipes to prepare soups and dishes with some of the overly priced food items. What in the past were regarded as common items such as yam, plantains, and potatoes now command excessively high figures, and Nigerians are right to wonder how and why things are the way they are.”
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“There is virtually no food item that has not had its price raised to a level higher than what a good many Nigerians can afford. The affordability crisis in our food security system has been indexed by the data from the National Bureau of Statistics, which, by the last count, had put food inflation at 40.66%,“ the Minister said.
The Minister disclosed that in addition to the importation by the private sector, the Federal Government will also import 250,000 metric tons of wheat and 250,000 metric tons of maize to satisfy the demand of small-scale processors and millers across the country.
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He went further to state that there would be sustained support for smallholder farmers in the ongoing wet season farming and accelerate dry season farming through aggressive agricultural mechanization and collaboration with Sub-National to identify irrigable lands and increase land under cultivation.
