Banji Oyelaran-Oyeyinka of AfDB has called for swift action to reduce Nigeria’s $10 billion food import bill by increasing local production.
Prof. Banji Oyelaran-Oyeyinka, the Senior Special Adviser to the President on Industrialisation at the African Development Bank (AfDB), revealed on Monday that Nigeria spent approximately $10 billion on food imports, including fish.
He said despite having large bodies of water and ocean, the bulk of these imports – cereals, corn, maize, and wheat gulped $3 billion last year.
Speaking at the opening of the 2024 Agriculture Summit Africa (ASA), organised by Sterling Bank in Abuja, Oyeyinka said These are things we can produce…Yet all the preconditions are there for us to be self-sufficient in food production”.
Oyeyinka said that over 60 per cent of individual income was being spent on food – one of the highest in the world, adding that the country must maintain political stability and security at any cost, adding that without stability in these areas, “we’ll keep losing production”.
According to him, the most fundamental reason for current food scarcity was “our lack of production capability. In other words, our inability to produce sufficiently on our farms, our inability to also process in our factories. Scarcity is widespread in every poor country”.
“Africa must get its own Green Revolution in the next five years, or else we remain a laughing stock. We must change this narrative.” He said.
