Farmers Warn Nigerians to Prepare For Serious Food Crisis in 2025

The association based the warning on the macroeconomic instability arising from the triple whammy of Naira volatility, insecurity, and climate change.

AFAN made the call via its National President, Mr Kabir Ibrahim, in a new year message.

Mr Ibrahim warned that Nigeria is on the cusp of experiencing a major catastrophe of food insecurity, adding, “If extreme care is not taken judging from the macroeconomic instability arising from currency volatility, insecurity, climate change and inequity.”

However, Mr Ibrahim emphasised the urgent need for the country to prioritise food sufficiency, particularly during the crucial first quarter of the year.

The AFAN President urged that stakeholders like the government and farmers must work together to get Nigeria out of the stranglehold of hunger and extreme poverty.

“While not trying to sound despondent, I hasten to say that the attainment of food sufficiency for Nigerians in the first quarter of 2025 may be the elixir for the continued existence of Nigeria as a working unit.

“I say this with all sense of responsibility having been involved in agricultural advocacy for the better part of my 66 years on earth.

“In 2024 we saw various efforts at stabilising Nigeria’s food system through various windows of support to the SHFs, the MSMEs, the SSPs and the vulnerable people but food inflation is still at an all-time high at 39.93 per cent which portends extreme hunger to a very good number of Nigerians.

“In 2025 we must coalesce as stakeholders/farmers with the government to get Nigeria out of the stranglehold of hunger and extreme poverty. We can only do this if we work as a unified body with common interests and operating from common ground.”

He noted that there is a possibility of tackling the crisis, only if the proper measures are put in place.

“It may appear ambitious but evidently doable through a collective resolve to extricate our country from looming existential challenges,” he added.

Business Post reports that President Bola Tinubu promised to tackle the food crisis, and reiterated it during his New Year’s message.