The news
Nigeria is to increase imports of staple foods and end tariffs on certain grains in a bid to curb runaway food inflation that is causing widespread problems.
The suspension will last for 150 days and will apply to corn, husked brown rice, wheat and black-eyed peas, the government’s agriculture minister said Abubakar KyariThe government will import 250,000 tonnes of semi-processed wheat and maize which will be “supplied to small-scale processors and millers across the country,” Kyari said.
Knowing more
At 34.19%, Nigeria’s inflation rate in June again marked a near three-decade high, more than 11 percentage points higher than the rate in the same period last year.
Annual inflation, particularly for food, was nearly 41 percent, the government’s statistics agency said. The result of skyrocketing food prices is a cost-of-living crisis that is straining millions of already poor households.
But importing food to solve inflation is a “depressing” move, said Akinwumi Adesina, head of the African Development Bank and a former Nigerian agriculture minister. The country should “produce more food to stabilize food prices, while creating jobs and reducing foreign exchange spending” to stabilize the local naira currency, he said.
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu recently reiterated at a rally that the import plan is temporary and that his government will “continue to boost local production” so that Nigeria can live off what it produces.
