Why Your Food Bills Are Hitting Different in 2026

Photo: The Punch

Nigeria's Farm Surplus Don Finish — And Your Pocket Is Feeling It

Chai. If you've been to any market in Nigeria recently — whether it's Mile 12 in Lagos, Wuse Market in Abuja, or Onitsha Main Market — you already know something is very wrong. The prices of everyday food items have been climbing like they're trying to reach the sky, and plenty of Nigerians are wondering: "What exactly is going on?" Well, brother and sister, the answer just got confirmed with hard numbers, and e no good at all.

Nigeria's agricultural trade balance has officially swung into a N56.13 billion deficit in the first half of 2026 — effectively burying a two-year surplus that we had been managing to maintain. In simple English? We are now spending far more money buying food and farm produce from other countries than we are earning from selling our own agricultural goods abroad. And trust me, when the country's farm economy sneezes, it is your bowl of eba and egusi soup that catches the cold.

Two Years of Progress — Gone Just Like That

Let's give credit where it's due. Nigeria had been doing reasonably well on the agricultural trade front for two solid years. We were exporting more than we were importing — sesame seeds, cashews, cocoa, ginger — our farmers were putting in work. But in 2026, two major wahala have combined to knock everything upside down: import waivers and insecurity in farming communities.

The federal government granted waivers on certain agricultural imports, ostensibly to crash food prices and ease the cost-of-living crisis squeezing ordinary Nigerians. The intention? Good. The execution? Complicated. When you flood the market with cheaper imported food, local farmers who have already invested their resources into planting and harvesting suddenly find themselves unable to compete. Their goods sit, unsold. Their profits disappear. Some pack up and go home. Production drops. And ironically, in the medium term, the very food prices the government was trying to reduce end up rising again because local supply capacity has been weakened.

Boko Haram, Bandits, and Farmlands Left Fallow

Now add insecurity into this already messy equation. Across the North — which is Nigeria's primary food belt — farmers in states like Benue, Zamfara, Katsina, Niger, and Plateau have been repeatedly attacked by bandits and armed herders. Many communities have been displaced entirely. Farmlands that should be producing rice, maize, sorghum, and vegetables are sitting fallow because farmers are afraid to go back. Some have relocated to urban areas permanently.

Think about it this way: if the farmers cannot farm, who produces the food? Nobody. And when nobody is producing enough locally, we go cap-in-hand to import — driving that deficit figure even deeper. It becomes a vicious cycle, and at every stage of that cycle, the person who suffers most is the average Nigerian trying to feed their family on a modest income.

So How Does This N56bn Deficit Land on Your Dinner Table?

This is where it gets very personal. Here's a breakdown of how this agricultural trade mess translates into the reality you experience every single day:

• Tomatoes and pepper: When local production from Kano and Kaduna drops due to farmer displacement, we rely more on imports or scarcity-driven local pricing. A basket of tomatoes that used to go for a certain amount has become a luxury item in many homes.
• Rice: Despite years of rice paddy investment under previous administrations, the combination of import waivers and reduced local cultivation means the market is being confused — cheap imports come in temporarily, then suddenly they stop, and prices spike worse than before.
• Palm oil: Southern Nigeria produces palm oil, but insecurity and poor rural infrastructure mean supply chains are disrupted. Palm oil is now something many families are rationing carefully.
• Beans and grains: Bandits attacking food-producing communities in the Middle Belt has been devastating. Beans prices have been punishing. Many Nigerian families have quietly started reducing their protein intake because they simply cannot afford it.
• Poultry and eggs: When grain prices go up, the cost of feeding chickens goes up. When feeding costs go up, the price of eggs and chicken goes up. Everything is connected.

The Ordinary Nigerian Is Absorbing the Shock

Here is the painful truth: the people making policy decisions about import waivers are not the ones skipping meals. It is Mama Chinyere in Enugu, managing a household on less than N100,000 a month. It is Alhaji Musa in Sokoto, a retired civil servant watching his pension evaporate against market prices. It is the Lagos bus driver calculating whether he can still afford to buy fish this week or whether plain soup will have to do.

Nigeria's inflation figures have been brutal, and a significant portion of that inflation is food inflation. When the agricultural trade balance collapses into deficit territory, it signals that we have lost our grip on domestic food production — and the consequences flow downward to every Nigerian household like water finding its level.

What Needs to Happen — And Fast

The government cannot simply keep granting import waivers as a short-term fix without investing seriously in the conditions that make local farming viable. Security in rural communities must be a priority — not just press releases, but actual boots on the ground protecting farmers. Agricultural infrastructure — storage facilities, rural roads, irrigation — must receive sustained investment. And policies must be designed with the long view in mind, not just the next headline.

Nigeria has some of the richest farmland on the African continent. We have the labour force. We have the appetite — God knows we love to eat well. What we need is leadership that treats food security as the national security issue that it absolutely is.

Until then, Nigerians go just dey manage. But managing is not a strategy. And with a N56.13 billion deficit already staring us in the face just halfway through 2026, time is not exactly on our side.