By Luka Binniyat and Ezinwanne Onwuka
A cargo vessel carrying 50,000 metric tons of U.S. wheat, valued at $15 million, recently docked at the Apapa Port in Lagos. The shipment, procured by Flour Mills of Nigeria, is another reminder of a hard truth: Africa’s most populous nation still depends heavily on imported grain to feed its people, largely because farmers are too afraid to go to their fields.
The delivery came as Nigeria works to stabilize food supplies and deepen agricultural trade ties with the United States. Nigeria remains one of the largest overseas buyers of American wheat, a position driven not by preference, but by necessity. Flour Mills of Nigeria relies on imported wheat to produce flour, pasta, bread, and other staples consumed daily by millions of households.
Yet behind the steady flow of imports lies a deeper crisis unfolding far from the ports.
Banditry Pushes Farmers Off Farms
Nigeria’s Northwest, once known as the country’s breadbasket, has turned into a danger zone.
Armed banditry across Zamfara, Katsina, Sokoto, and parts of Kaduna has pushed farmers off their land, crippled food production, and displaced more than one million people.
Security analysts estimate that about 30,000 bandits operate across the region. Their impact on agriculture has been devastating. Farmers abandon fields to avoid kidnappings, killings, and extortion. In Zamfara State alone, nearly 80 percent of farmland lies idle.
The result is a production collapse. Nigeria currently produces only about 135,000 metric tons of wheat annually, against a national demand of over 6 million metric tons.
Attacks often happen during planting or harvest seasons. In some areas, bandits impose illegal “taxes” on farmers—payable in cash or food—just to access their own land. In extreme cases, they plant improvised explosive devices on farmlands.
Faced with these risks, many farmers across the Northwest have suspended farming altogether. What should be Nigeria’s strongest agricultural zone has become one of its weakest links.
A wheat farmer, Alh. Kabiru Danzaki, who responded to TruthNigeria inquiries from Kano, insists that the ongoing insurgency, banditry and conflicts in the North-East, the Middle Belt and North-West of Nigeria has driven farmers away from their land and disrupted agricultural activities nationwide.
“I have about 500 hectares of land about 15 kilometers South of Kano in an open area surrounded by uncultivated bushes,” Danzaki told TruthNigeria.
“Kidnappers attacked us three times in 2023 and I have to abandon the farm since then. That is about 1,500 tonnes that has not been produced each year. Many wheat farmers have abandoned their farms. We hope that security will improve this year (2026) so that we can return to the farm.”
Local Wheat Production Stagnates
Nigeria consumes between 5 and 6 million metric tons of wheat each year, yet local production accounts for barely one percent of that demand.
To bridge this shortfall, the country imports over 5 million metric tons of wheat annually, at a cost of about $2 billion. Wheat is now the second-largest contributor to Nigeria’s food import bill, draining scarce foreign exchange.
This heavy dependence persists despite Nigeria’s natural advantages. The country has about 250,000 hectares suitable for wheat cultivation, yet annual production remains below 200,000 metric tons.
Several states possess the right soil and climate for wheat farming, including Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Kaduna, Sokoto, Zamfara, Plateau, Bauchi, Gombe, Adamawa, and Yobe. Among them, Jigawa and Kano account for about 70 percent of Nigeria’s total wheat production.
Still, even at peak performance, national output falls far short of consumption needs, which is expected to increase 10 percent to 5.6 million tonnes this year alone, according to WorldGrain.com. Agricultural economists say there is significant untapped wheat potential in Nigeria.
“Our wheat is grown in the dry harmattan period,” Michael Rikichi, a wheat farmer and secretary of Nigeria’s Wheat Farmers Cooperative Society, Kaduna State Branch, told TruthNigeria.
“That is not enough to mass output of the crop. Unfortunately, much of Nigeria’s irrigation infrastructure, like dams, canals, boreholes etc are far inadequate. The ones we have now are poorly maintained.”
Farming in the Ruins of Economic Mismanagement
While the current administration of President Bola Tinubu looks toward boosting agriculture, it is doing so from an economic hole dug during the tenure of former President Muhammadu Buhari (2015–2023). Under Buhari, the economy did not merely stagnate; it shrank.
Nigeria’s nominal GDP fell sharply from $568 billion in 2015 to about $362 billion in 2023. Real GDP growth averaged a weak 1.24 percent annually, interrupted by recessions in 2016 (-1.6 percent) and 2020 (-1.8 percent).
As economic growth faltered, insecurity intensified, particularly from 2018 onwards, spreading rapidly across rural and farming communities. At the same time, macroeconomic indicators worsened.
The naira depreciated sharply from around ₦198 per USD in early 2015 to about ₦645 by late 2023. Inflation more than doubled over the period. From about 9 percent in 2015, it climbed to a peak at 22.4 percent in early 2021 and remained persistently high—above 18 percent—throughout 2023.
By the end of Buhari’s tenure, Nigeria’s economy was in tatters. Agriculture bore a disproportionate share of the damage as banditry spread, leaving farmers squeezed between insecurity, inflation and cheap imports. That pressure, farmers say, has made meaningful local production increasingly uncompetitive.
“No matter how much we cultivate all lands suitable for wheat crops, we can never compete with, say, South Africa or Ukraine,” said Rikichi, “Especially as government is flooding the market with cheaper imported wheat.”
Luka Binniyat and Ezinwanne Onwuka are conflict reporters for TruthNigeria.
