{"id":4710,"date":"2019-08-19T10:30:05","date_gmt":"2019-08-19T07:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=4710"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:29","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:29","slug":"why-nigeria-has-restricted-food-imports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/08\/19\/why-nigeria-has-restricted-food-imports\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Nigeria Has Restricted Food Imports"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>By Kunle Falayi<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>President Muhammadu\nBuhari has directed the Central Bank of Nigeria to block food importers&#8217;\nrequests for foreign currency in a bid to boost local agriculture in Africa&#8217;s\nmost populous country.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is a continuation\nof a policy that the president began after coming to office in 2015, when he\nbanned the use of foreign exchange to import dozens of items including the staple\nfood, rice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Since then, domestic\nrice production has increased, but the policy has been criticised for not\ntaking the low capacity of local farmers into consideration. The policy has\nalso coincided with a rise in food prices, which has been blamed on insecurity\nin some of the country&#8217;s main food producing areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>How much is Nigeria spending on importing food?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to data from\nNigeria&#8217;s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the amount of money the country\nhas been spending on importing food and drink increased from 2015 to 2017,\ndipped in 2018 and if the trend from the first quarter of this year continues, the\nbill will go up again for this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 2015, Nigeria spent\nnearly $2.9bn (\u00a32.4bn) and by 2017 that had risen to $4.1bn, the NBS says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Would restricting food\nimports boost local production?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Many experts believe\nthat the policy of restricting food imports does have some merits, but the\npolicy cannot be introduced in isolation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Agricultural economist\nIdris Ayinde argues that restricting food imports should be a gradual process\nsince the country cannot yet meet domestic demand for most food commodities,\nand the policy risks increasing food price inflation further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Local rice production\nhas increased, but the foreign exchange ban was coupled with policies aimed at\nsupporting farmers through subsidies and loans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For instance, last\nNovember, the government spent $165m subsidizing rice production. Despite this,\npeople continue to buy rice that has been smuggled into the country\u2026<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-africa-49367968\">Read more&gt;&gt;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Kunle Falayi President Muhammadu Buhari has directed the Central Bank of Nigeria to block food importers&#8217; requests for foreign currency in a bid to boost local agriculture in Africa&#8217;s&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4711,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}