The price of a 50kg bag of foreign rice has surged to over N88,000 across major stores in Nigeria, which is 22.2% higher than the N72,000 recorded earlier in the month....CONTINUE READING
In the same vein, locally made rice increased by almost the same rate (21.8%) to N67,000 in just less than a month. This information comes from findings by the Nairametrics Research team. Compared to the same period last year, the price of foreign rice has increased by 244%, while local rice has witnessed a 209% price increase in the same period.
It’s worth noting that the exchange rate between the naira and other currencies has depreciated significantly in recent times, losing over 45% and 30% year-to-date at the official and parallel market, respectively.
Recent inflation data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) revealed that food inflation rose to 35.71% in January 2024, the highest level since August 2005.
According to the NBS, food inflation in January was driven by increases in price of bread and cereals, potatoes, yam and other tubers, oil and fat, fish, meat, coffee, tea, and cocoa.
Meanwhile, a further analysis shows that imported food inflation rose to 26.3% from 24.9% recorded in the previous month. This represents the highest rate recorded since January 2012 as FX volatility as well as low agricultural production drive surge in food prices.
Also, GDP data has indicated slow growth in the Nigerian agricultural sector in the last two years, hampered by insecurity, impact of global supply chain issues on fertilizer and seed supply, climate change, and flooding.
Notably, the agricultural sector only grew by 1.13% in 2023, in contrast to 1.88% recorded in the previous year.
