Crippling over 35 million farmers and crushing 20 years of progress 

Earlier this 12 months, I sounded an alarm, warning that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s ill-advised coverage shift in direction of open border insurance policies and meals importation risked “Reversing Nigeria’s meals safety good points of the final 20 years.”

At the moment, I need to improve that warning to a nationwide disaster alarm. The worst fears of Nigerian agricultural stakeholders are now not hypothetical; they’re a devastating actuality taking part in out throughout our farming communities and full meals worth chain.

In only one 12 months, the wrongly suggested meals imports and open border insurance policies of President Ahmed Bola Tinubu have begun to systematically dismantle the outstanding meals manufacturing and safety good points Nigeria achieved over the past 20 years, significantly underneath Presidents Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari. That progress, constructed on deliberate insurance policies of import restriction, catalyzed billions of Naira in private-sector funding, pulling thousands and thousands of smallholder farmers out of utmost poverty.

The present authorities’s acknowledged intention to scale back the rising price of meals for peculiar Nigerians is laudable, however its chosen methodology is an financial and social catastrophe. By granting sponsored import licenses to a privileged few to flood the market with low-cost grains—like rice, maize, and soybeans–from nations that closely subsidize their very own manufacturing, the administration has inadvertently declared battle by itself over 35 million smallholder farmers.

The argument that “middlemen” are solely answerable for excessive meals costs is an empty fallacy, a handy narrative pushed by highly effective capitalists who stand to revenue immensely from the import concession.

They failed to inform the President the reality: the actual driver of rising meals prices was the basic financial shocks of the gas subsidy elimination and the alternate price coverage unification.

These insurance policies, for example, pushed the price of farm inputs like a 50kg bag of urea from underneath N18,000 in 2022 to over N30,000 in 2024,  non-selective herbicide costs from underneath N4,000 to over N6,000 and plenty of different farm inputs. The rise in meals costs was a direct, predictable response to elevated operational prices, identical to each different sector of the Nigerian financial system.

The implications of the president`s coverage path in direction of meals imports and open borders are swift and brutal. Over 35 million rural smallholder farmers–the spine of our meals system are being pushed again into excessive poverty.

For example, in 2023, our firm, Hemam Synergy, paid the rice farmers we supported about N550,000 per ton of rice paddy, producing important earnings for the over 30,000  rice farmers we supported that 12 months. At the moment, in 2025, those self same farmers are incomes lower than N250,000 per ton–a devastating 120% drop in earnings for these farmers.

That is even because the manufacturing prices for these farmers surged by over 30% in 2025. What this implies is that these farmers are unable to get better their prices of cultivation. With no honest value, thousands and thousands of farmers will abandon their farmlands subsequent season, guaranteeing a deeper, long-term meals disaster.

Furthermore, a number of Agribusinesses are Shutting Down. A whole bunch of billions of personal capital invested throughout the agricultural worth chains are being pulled again. From built-in rice mills (which grew from lower than 10 to over 268 over the previous 20 years) to soybean crushers, animal feed mills, and processing crops–agribusinesses that created tens of 1000’s of jobs are actually struggling, cutting down, or shutting store solely.

The sector’s threat profile has soared, proving the long-held skepticism of traders right: that coverage inconsistency stays the best risk to the Nigerian agriculture sector.

The largest concern is that Nigeria`s Nationwide Meals Safety is in danger. We’re threading the trail again to changing into a food-import-dependent nation, jeopardizing our meals sovereignty. The surge of low-cost, and sometimes unwholesome, imported and smuggled grains undermines public well being and financial stability concurrently. Nigeria’s progress, which noticed annual paddy manufacturing 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 Name for Rapid Reversal 

We strongly advise that President Tinubu instantly revisit the trail of nationwide meals safety that guided the nation for the previous 15 years. To deliver down meals costs sustainably, the federal government should undertake the confirmed methods of the very nations from which we are actually importing:

1. Reinstate Protectionist Measures: Instantly halt the sponsored grain import licenses and safe our borders towards the flood of low-cost, smuggled grains.
2. Subsidize Manufacturing, Not Imports: Shift authorities assist to subsidizing the price of production-specifically the price of fertilizer and different crucial inputs on the manufacturing level-to deliver down the price of native meals cultivation.
3. Strategic Reserves: Procure native grains at honest, remunerative costs to construct the strategic meals reserve, and strategically launch these reserves to steadiness market costs when needed.
4. Encourage extra Meals Manufacturing By Irrigation: Encourage native farmers to domesticate and produce extra meals via year-round cultivation–significantly scaling our Firm Hemam`s piloted Photo voltaic Irrigation program, serving to farmers perform two to 3 seasons crop cultivations in a sustainable and reasonably priced approach.

Mr. President, the present meals import and open border coverage of your administration, though with its good and real intent, is a short-term palliative that ensures long-term nationwide meals insecurity and a socio-economic disaster for over 35 million of your residents. The collapse of native agriculture won’t solely destabilize the financial system however may push the voting energy of Nigeria’s rural poor towards your present administration within the subsequent presidential elections.

The selection is obvious: can Nigeria proceed to complement a handful of import-focused capitalists on the expense of thousands and thousands of native farmers, nationwide jobs, and our very meals safety? Or will we return to the deliberate, intentional path of constructing a strong, self-sufficient, and affluent Nigerian agricultural sector? The time to decide on nationwide safety over fast palliative reduction and comfort is now.

President Tinubu nonetheless has time to behave. The trail to meals sovereignty shouldn’t be via dependency — it’s via deliberate funding in our individuals, our land, and our manufacturing techniques.

If Nigeria fails to behave now, we threat returning to the darkish years when over 70% of the meals we consumed was imported. That might not solely cripple our financial system — it might compromise our nationwide safety and sovereignty.

The alarm bells are ringing. This isn’t nearly farmers — it’s about the way forward for Nigeria.

Michael is the Managing Director of Hemam Synergy Ltd 

An Agribusiness firm supporting over 50,000 rural smallholder farmers with inputs, photo voltaic irrigation techniques and market entry. Michael will be reached at [email protected]