Earlier this year, I sounded an alarm, warning that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s ill-advised policy shift towards open border policies and food importation risked “Reversing Nigeria’s food security gains of the last 20 years.”
Today, I must upgrade that warning to a national crisis alarm. The worst fears of Nigerian agricultural stakeholders are no longer hypothetical; they are a devastating reality playing out across our farming communities and entire food value chain.
In just one year, the wrongly advised food imports and open border policies of President Ahmed Bola Tinubu have begun to systematically dismantle the remarkable food production and security gains Nigeria achieved over the last 20 years, particularly under Presidents Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari. That progress, built on deliberate policies of import restriction, catalyzed billions of Naira in private-sector investment, pulling millions of smallholder farmers out of extreme poverty.
The current government’s stated aim to reduce the rising cost of food for ordinary Nigerians is laudable, but its chosen method is an economic and social disaster. By granting subsidized import licenses to a privileged few to flood the market with cheap grains—like rice, maize, and soybeans–from countries that heavily subsidize their own production, the administration has inadvertently declared war on its own over 35 million smallholder farmers.
The argument that “middlemen” are solely responsible for high food prices is an empty fallacy, a convenient narrative pushed by powerful capitalists who stand to profit immensely from the import concession.
They failed to tell the President the truth: the real driver of rising food costs was the fundamental economic shocks of the fuel subsidy removal and the exchange rate policy unification.
These policies, for instance, pushed the cost of farm inputs like a 50kg bag of urea from under N18,000 in 2022 to over N30,000 in 2024, non-selective herbicide prices from under N4,000 to over N6,000 and many other farm inputs. The increase in food prices was a direct, predictable response to increased operational costs, just like every other sector of the Nigerian economy.
The consequences of the president`s policy direction towards food imports and open borders are swift and brutal. Over 35 million rural smallholder farmers–the backbone of our food system are being pushed back into extreme poverty.
For instance, in 2023, our company, Hemam Synergy, paid the rice farmers we supported about N550,000 per ton of rice paddy, generating significant income for the over 30,000 rice farmers we supported that year. Today, in 2025, those same farmers are earning less than N250,000 per ton–a devastating 120% drop in income for these farmers.
This is even as the production costs for these farmers surged by over 30% in 2025. What this means is that these farmers are unable to recover their costs of cultivation. Without a fair price, millions of farmers will abandon their farmlands next season, guaranteeing a deeper, long-term food crisis.
Moreover, several Agribusinesses are Shutting Down. Hundreds of billions of private capital invested across the agricultural value chains are being pulled back. From integrated rice mills (which grew from less than 10 to over 268 over the past 20 years) to soybean crushers, animal feed mills, and processing plants–agribusinesses that created tens of thousands of jobs are now struggling, scaling down, or shutting shop entirely.
The sector’s risk profile has soared, proving the long-held skepticism of investors correct: that policy inconsistency remains the greatest threat to the Nigerian agriculture sector.
The biggest concern is that Nigeria`s National Food Security is at risk. We are threading the path back to becoming a food-import-dependent nation, jeopardizing our food sovereignty. The surge of cheap, and often unwholesome, imported and smuggled grains undermines public health and economic stability simultaneously. Nigeria’s progress, which saw annual paddy production 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.
A Call for Immediate Reversal
We strongly advise that President Tinubu immediately revisit the path of national food security that guided the country for the past 15 years. To bring down food prices sustainably, the government must adopt the proven strategies of the very nations from which we are now importing:
- Reinstate Protectionist Measures: Immediately halt the subsidized grain import licenses and secure our borders against the flood of cheap, smuggled grains.
- Subsidize Production, Not Imports: Shift government support to subsidizing the cost of production-specifically the cost of fertilizer and other critical inputs at the production level-to bring down the cost of local food cultivation.
- Strategic Reserves: Procure local grains at fair, remunerative prices to build the strategic food reserve, and strategically release these reserves to balance market prices when necessary.
- Encourage more Food Production Through Irrigation: Encourage local farmers to cultivate and produce more food through year-round cultivation–particularly scaling our Company Hemam`s piloted Solar Irrigation program, helping farmers carry out two to three seasons crop cultivations in a sustainable and affordable way.
Mr. President, the current food import and open border policy of your administration, although with its good and genuine intent, is a short-term palliative that guarantees long-term national food insecurity and a socio-economic catastrophe for over 35 million of your citizens. The collapse of local agriculture will not only destabilize the economy but may also push the voting power of Nigeria’s rural poor against your current administration in the next presidential elections.
The choice is clear: can Nigeria continue to enrich a handful of import-focused capitalists at the expense of millions of local farmers, national jobs, and our very food security? Or do we return to the deliberate, intentional path of building a robust, self-sufficient, and prosperous Nigerian agricultural sector? The time to choose national security over immediate palliative relief and convenience is now.
President Tinubu still has time to act. The path to food sovereignty is not through dependency — it is through deliberate investment in our people, our land, and our production systems.
If Nigeria fails to act now, we risk returning to the dark years when over 70% of the food we consumed was imported. That would not only cripple our economy — it would compromise our national security and sovereignty.
The alarm bells are ringing. This is not just about farmers — it’s about the future of Nigeria. \
Michael is the Managing Director of Hemam Synergy Ltd
An Agribusiness company supporting over 50,000 rural smallholder farmers with inputs, solar irrigation systems and market access. Michael can be reached at mikekwuby@gmail.com
I would’ve loved to know what this guy’s take was when the skyrocketing food prices left a devastating blow to families and the general economy. The inability of the farmers to effectively plug the supply gap for many demands led to exorbitant food prices all over the federation. The president in his wisdom adopted a controlled import approach albeit temporarily in order to cushion the effect of the skyrocketed prices and supplement the gaps left by the local farmers. The result is a seven month consecutive streaks of drops in the inflation figures. Come on we are all Nigerians and we know what you farmers wanted to turn our economy into.