Report: 33.1 Million Nigerians Face Severe Food Shortage By 2025

Michael Olugbode in Abuja

Approximately 33.1 million Nigerians, including over 514,000 displaced persons in Borno, Sokoto, and Zamfara states, have been projected to face severe food shortages between June and August 2025. These findings were presented at the 2024 Cadre Harmonise National Validation and Consolidation Result Presentation in Abuja yesterday, underscoring urgent concerns about food security as the lean season approaches.
According to the report, a mix of rising inflation, a weakened currency, and disrupted livelihoods has drastically reduced households’ ability to secure sufficient food.

In his remarks, the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, Temitope Fashedemi represented by the Director of Nutrition and Food Security, Nuhu Kilishi, cautioned that the situation is critical and demands immediate attention.
He urged that the findings from the Cadre Harmonise (CH) analysis be adopted for planning and implemention through the food and nutrition security interventions across federal ministries, the 26 CH states, the humanitarian community, and other partners active in Nigeria.

Fashedemi said: “The results being presented today are for the 26 CH participating states of Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). The November, 2024 CH results is apt and comes at this phase of economic stress when we are still grappling with the removal of fuel subsidies which has sent ripples through the agricultural sector.
“The major effect is the increased transportation costs due to the high fuel prices, negatively impacting agricultural production. With the spike in fuel prices, transportation costs have soared, squeezing farmers profit margins and potentially driving up food prices for consumers, and not forgetting the daunting insecurity situation which has continued to threaten Nigeria’s food and nutrition security. Obviously, these challenges have led to disruptions in food system (food production, distribution, marketing and even stocking mechanisms), resulting in poor consumption patterns among several households especially, in areas affected by insecurity.

“My ministry applauds the financial and technical contribution of FAO, CILSS, WFP, Save the Children International for the advocacy and level 1 certification training for the remaining 10 states. Hopefully, before the end of year 2025, we would work to mainstream all the thirty-six (36) states of the country in the CH analysis.”

The meeting further recommended that federal and state governments sustain humanitarian actions, invest in climate-smart agriculture, prioritise agribusiness SMEs, develop early warning systems, and allocate budgetary support for CH analysis, among other measures.