The Federal Government has raised fresh concerns over the influx of subsidised agricultural imports, warning that unfair global trade practices are undercutting local producers and threatening Nigeria’s food security.
Speaking at the second biannual meeting of the Agrifood Systems Working Group in Abuja, the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Senator Abubakar Atiku Bagudu, urged public, private, and international stakeholders to unite in protecting the domestic agricultural value chain.
The warning comes as President Bola Tinubu’s administration accelerates economic diversification through the agricultural sector.
Senator Bagudu noted that artificially cheap food imports, compounded by rising global fertiliser and energy costs stemming from international conflicts, put severe operational pressure on domestic growers.
Despite these external shocks, Nigeria’s agricultural sector expanded to N101.46 trillion in 2025, up from N96.46 trillion in 2024, with real growth rising to 2.92 per cent from 1.69 per cent.
The minister stressed the need to safeguard the country’s 42 million agricultural households, the vast majority of whom are smallholder family farmers, by delivering improved seedlings, modern machinery, climate-smart technologies, and accessible financing.
The Federal Government is implementing structural institutional reforms under the Renewed Hope Agenda.
These include establishing the Federal Ministry of Livestock Development, shifting fisheries to the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy, and scaling capital funding for intervention bodies such as the National Agricultural Development Fund (NADF) and the National Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA).
Bagudu praised the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, for leading the domestic deployment of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) 2026–2035.
While the continental strategy runs through 2035, Bagudu reaffirmed that the federal government is pursuing an accelerated timeline to significantly curb national poverty by 2030 through enhanced food production and sub-national agricultural development.
Source: Business Hallmark
Image Credit: UN Nations
