Amid escalating food insecurity driven by intensified conflicts and climate-related disruptions to farming across Nigeria, the country’s food imports surged by 16% in 2024, reaching $2.5 billion, up from $2.13 billion in 2023.
The World Bank’s 2025 Food Security Update revealed that an additional one million Nigerians faced acute food insecurity in 2024, largely due to the ongoing conflict and climate shocks, including severe droughts.
According to the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) Quarterly Statistical Bulletins, food imports increased in three of the four quarters of 2024. In Q1, food imports rose by 40% quarter-on-quarter (QoQ), reaching $689.88 million, compared to $493.24 million in Q4 2023. Year-on-year (YoY), this represented a 1.8% increase from $677.61 million in Q1 2023.
However, in Q2 2024, food imports fell to $547.7 million, marking a 21% QoQ and 20% YoY decrease from Q1 2024’s $689.88 million and Q2 2023’s $685.37 million, respectively.
The upward trend resumed in Q3 2024, with food imports rising to $633 million, reflecting a 15.7% QoQ and 132% YoY increase compared to Q2 2024 ($547.7 million) and Q3 2023 ($273.11 million). This increase continued into Q4 2024, where food imports reached $658.54 million, a 3.9% QoQ and 33.5% YoY rise from Q3 2024’s $633 million and Q4 2023’s $493.24 million.
Despite the rise in food imports, the CBN reported a decline in the share of food imports within total imports, which dropped to 13.15% in Q4 2024, down from 18.13% in Q3 2024.
The CBN’s Quarterly Economic Report for Q4 2024 further detailed that the industrial sector, which primarily includes raw materials and machinery, accounted for the largest portion of imports at 50.41%. This was followed by the oil sector at 20.24%, food products at 13.15%, manufactured products at 9.22%, minerals at 3.54%, transport at 2.94%, and agricultural products at just 0.50%.
