Grain production declines in Nigeria

Nigeria’s maize and rice production is expected to decline in the 2024-25 marketing year due to rising crime rates in grain-producing regions and rising input costs affecting planting decisions, according to a report by the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS).

Armed conflict between the Nigerian authorities and various ethnic and criminal militias taking place in Northwest Nigeria has led to some farmers being displaced, paying for their protection and experiencing additional tax burden for their harvested crops, the report said. This is one of the reasons why FAS forecasts maize production to fall 8% in the coming marketing year to 11 million tons and rice production to fall 7% to 4.8 million tons.

Another factor holding back production of these crops is rising prices of, animal feed, food, fuel, electricity and farm inputs, which has led many farmers to refuse to plant crops, the report said.

The exception will be wheat, with production rising by 5% to 126,000 tons in 2024-25, due to renewed government interest in producing the crop as part of the dry season wheat initiative.

Due to numerous economic challenges, including food inflation, Nigeria’s cereal consumption is projected to decline in 2024-25, with maize and wheat use falling by 9% to 11.5 million tons and 4.2 million tons respectively, the report said.

Tags: grain, Nigeria, crop forecast