Nigeria spends over N1trn on food imports annually

Massive importation of food, especially, rice, wheat, sugar and fish has continued to bleed the nation’s economy with the four items, accounting for a whooping N1 trillion loss to the nation, annually. The Executive Secretary, Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria, ARCN, Prof. Baba Abubakar, disclosed this at a sensitisation seminar on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and Agricultural Biotechnology, in Abuja.

The seminar was organised for staff of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development by Biotechnology Development Agency in collaboration with other OFAB and National Biosafety Management Agency. The ARCN scribe, who was represented by the Acting Director, Partnership and Linkages Programme, Yarama Ndirpaya, noted with dismay that Nigeria has remained a large food importer, in-spite of massive uncultivated agricultural land, across the country.

‘‘Nigeria spends over N1 trillion on the top four food imports annually. And farmers have limited capacity and use techniques that adversely affect soil fertility, water and biodiversity. Human-induced climate change compounds the issue.’’ According to him, Nigeria is the largest importer of US hard red and white Wheat-N635 billion/annum; world’s number 2 importer of rice at N356 billion; N217 billion on sugar and N97 billion on fish annually. He described the development as unacceptable, when the country faces daunting challenges in the face of declining agricultural productivity, increasing population even at the rising food prices and called for immediate adoption of biotechnology to save the country from further embarrassment and imminent danger.

The ARCN boss further noted that Nigerian farmers have limited capacity and use techniques that adversely affect soil fertility, water and biodiversity and warned that unless farmers are empowered with biotechnology thee problem may linger into the future.