For consumers, the past one year has been nothing short of hell as food prices are soaring out of control with no signs of coming down.
The household is now cutting spending and missing meals, squeezed by reduced incomes. Food inflation—a key determinant of headline inflation—rose to 40.5 percent in April as food prices soared non-stop.
A 2024 World Food Programme report cited surging food prices due to the ongoing conflict in key growing states, the high cost of inputs and transportation, and the high reliance on market purchases as staple production is below average.
Unless a country endowed with ample arable land resolves the insecurity crisis scaring farmers away from their farms, an end to food insecurity will not be witnessed based on expert views.
A tomato seller in the Kosofe local government area of Lagos, who gave his name simply as Usman, said: “Carrot, a vegetable which is of importance to, at best, substitute for tomato, has gone to N100,000 per basket from N7,000.”
But carrots are not the only food item to have tripled in price.
According to a BusinessDay survey across major markets, the average price of bagged yellow garri that was at N18,000 for 50kg in May 2023, currently sells at N60,000 on average, while a paint now goes for N4,000 from N3,000.
The price of a big basket of fresh tomatoes, the most consumed vegetable in the country increased by 200 per cent. Basket of tomatoes now sells for N120,000 against N40,000 sold last year in this famous Mile 12 market of Lagos town.
This unprecedented jump in food items has made Nigerians take to the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) to express their plights and fears.
SisiYemmie with the handle @Sisi_Yemmie Mouthed on X, “I don’t know how people are not panicking because of this food inflation because I’m low-key panicking.”
Another user Ayin Ibibio with the handle @asunwa, replied: “I’m panicking. I’ve been panicking. But what can I do? I cannot generate health problems from panicking because of inflation,” she lamented.
A combined report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation and World Food Programme entitled ‘Hunger hotspots – FAO-WFP early warnings on acute food insecurity’ discloses that Nigeria is among the 18 countries at risk to suffer acute food hunger between June and October 2024.
The International Rescue Committee, however, said in May that 32 million Nigerians will face acute hunger in the lean season of 2024 between June and August, imploring the federal government to proffer a sustainable solution.
Nigeria is the biggest country in Western Africa with a population of more than 200 million people, but around 84 million Nigerians, thereby representing about 37 percent of the total population, live below the poverty line.
“My monthly food budget can no longer buy the food items I used to buy before. It’s so saddening the way food prices are rising,” said Iyilewa Olawale, an accountant in Lagos. SisiYemmie, Ibibio, and Olawale all join the thousands of voices of Nigerians across the country dismayed at the ever-increasing wave of food prices.
BusinessDay recalls that one of the focuses of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration as captured on the economic reform list was to address food insecurity ravaging the country.
But close to a year after insecurity was declared on the sector in July 2023, Nigerians cannot afford a balanced diet meal without paying through their noses.