But the price of locally-produced rice has spiralled, pushing the staple out of reach for many. The cost of maize flour, millet and sorghum has also shot up.

Eighty percent of Nigeria's grain is produced in the northwest and northeast, but violence in these regions has increased pressure on supplies.

Deadly raids and kidnapping for ransom by criminal gangs in the northwest and a jihadist conflict in the northeast have displaced many farming communities.

In a report this month the World Bank warned of acute food shortages in seven states due to the violence.

Nigeria has also shut its northern border with Niger following a military coup that toppled President Mohamed Bazoum last year, preventing millet and cowpea from reaching northern Nigerian markets.

Hoarding

Nigerian authorities face increasing pressure to ease the hardship.

On Monday agriculture minister Abubakar Kyari told parliament national food security had suffered since the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 and devastating floods the following year.

But Ya'u Tumfafi, an official at Dawanau grain market on the outskirts of Kano, said hoarding was also to blame.

"Wealthy people have joined the grain business and continue to mop up grains and store them in warehouses," Tumfafi told AFP at Dawanau, the largest grain market in West Africa.


FILE - Nigerian manufacturers struggle with rising grain prices, especially for wheat, sparked by Russia's war on Ukraine.
To address growing discontent, President Tinubu has ordered the release of 102,000 tons of grain from the strategic reserve for sale at a subsidized rate to force down food prices.

He also vowed to tackle hoarding, while Kyari told parliament the government intended to boost irrigation farming to help ramp up production.

In Kano, authorities have raided warehouses where traders are suspected of hoarding food supplies.

Yobe state government this month banned bulk purchases of grain from local markets to stop hoarding and exports across Nigeria's borders saying it was to "stem the tide of food scarcity and high cost of grains."

Niger state governor Mohammed Umar Bago has announced a ban on the mass purchase of foodstuffs from local markets. He ordered security forces to confiscate trucks carrying products in bulk and "share the food to the people."

But grain trader Tumfafi said these were "just stop-gap measures that cannot solve the food problem we are facing."

"What impact can 102,000 tons make for 220 million people?" he said.

"Let the government secure our villages in the northwest and northeast for people to return and cultivate their farms. Nothing short of this will work."



https://www.voaafrica.com/a/northern-nigeria-struggles-with-food-shortages-/7488602.html

Its well

Subsitience farming cannot feed a nation

The insecurity, bad governance, and poor naira has exposed the fact that subsitence farming can't feed a nation at all.

The revolution will begin from the north.

COMRADES, hoarding is not the cause of hardship in Nigeria, hyper inflation caused by incompetent government is the cause

Those foods traders did not start their business today, it is a practice that had been in existence for centuries

The Tinubulation is so surreal!