No food security without real security

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NO country can expect its farmers to produce enough food when terrorists and bandits drive them from their fields, impose levies on those who remain, destroy their crops or kill them for refusing to comply.

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Yet this is precisely what the Nigerian Tribune found in extensive reporting across Sokoto, Zamfara, Katsina, Plateau, Benue, Niger and Borno states. Across the North, farmers are abandoning their farmland because of insecurity.

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The implication is stark: without securing farming communities, food security is impossible.

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The economic consequences of this violence are equally severe.

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According to the World Bank, crop losses in Nigeria rose from about 6.0 per cent of cultivated plots in 2018/19 to more than 20 per cent in 2023/24, more than a threefold increase.

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This means that even when farmers manage to plant, they are increasingly unable to harvest and realise the full value of their labour.

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In parts of the North, armed groups demand levies from farmers before allowing them to cultivate their own land. In Katsina, for instance, farmers have reported paying “security levies” running into millions of naira, while those who refuse face attacks.

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This is not taxation. It is economic warfare.

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A farmer operating under such conditions cannot reasonably be expected to produce at scale.

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In Borno, the insurgency has devastated agricultural production in a state that once possessed enormous potential for wheat and other staples. A 2025 agricultural study reported that the Boko Haram insurgency had neutralised Borno’s estimated 420,000-tonne wheat production capacity.

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Behind these statistics lies an even more horrific human cost.

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On January 12, 2025, at least 40 farmers and fishermen were killed at Dumba in Borno. Four years earlier, on November 28, 2020, at least 43 rice farmers were slaughtered at Koshobe, near Zabarmari in Jere LGA, while harvesting their crops.

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What farmer, after witnessing such killings, would confidently return to the farm?

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The consequence is a vicious cycle: insecurity reduces cultivation, constrains food supply and drives up prices. Higher food prices deepen poverty and vulnerability, leaving Nigeria increasingly exposed to foreign food markets.

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In 2025 alone, Nigeria spent N7.65 trillion on food and beverage imports, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

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This is particularly absurd for a country with about 37 million hectares of arable land, the largest such expanse in Africa. Nigeria also has a huge labour force and one of the world’s largest youth populations. Yet it remains heavily dependent on foreign food.

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In 2021, the Nigerian Economic Summit Group warned that the number of food-insecure Nigerians had risen from about 25 million to 50 million because of insecurity. The situation is likely even more alarming today.

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In the first quarter of 2026, crop production contributed about N8.9 trillion, representing 66.76 per cent of agriculture’s nominal value.

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Yet security constraints continue to prevent Nigeria from extracting anything close to its full agricultural potential.

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There can, therefore, be no serious conversation about food security without an equally serious conversation about security.

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The Federal Government must reclaim farming communities from terrorists and bandits.

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Farmers need protection during planting and harvesting seasons. Rural roads and storage facilities must be built, while markets and other agricultural infrastructure must be secured.

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But while crushing terrorists and bandits, particularly in the North, remains critical, southern states that are relatively insulated from these threats must also dramatically increase food production.

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Why should Delta, Edo, Enugu, Anambra and Ogun not expand the production of yam, cassava, maize, vegetables and other staples within their domains?

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Why should Lagos not develop serious commercial livestock and dairy initiatives, including ranching, to guarantee Nigerians reliable supplies of nutritious beef and milk?

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More fundamentally, what are state governors doing about food production? It is not enough to distribute seedlings and deliver speeches about food security.

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Governors must identify available land, attract serious investors, secure farming communities and support irrigation and mechanisation. They should also set measurable production targets for their states and hold their administrations accountable for meeting them.

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Nigeria cannot allow terrorists operating in parts of the North to hold more than 237 million people hostage.

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The experience of Ukraine is instructive. Despite a devastating war, agriculture has remained a strategic national priority. Ukrainian farmers continue to produce and export grain despite attacks, damaged infrastructure and extraordinary logistical challenges.

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In 2024, Ukraine increased its grain and oilseed exports amid the war.

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Nigeria must demonstrate the same determination.

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The North needs security so that its farmers can return to their land. At the same time, the South and other relatively secure parts of the country must expand agricultural production so that national food supplies do not depend excessively on any single region.

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Nigeria cannot defeat hunger while allowing violence to subdue farming.

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Food security begins with the security of the farmer. Farmers must also have reliable access to fertiliser and other essential inputs.

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Nigeria has the land. It has the people, the climate and enormous agricultural diversity. What it desperately lacks is the security, infrastructure and policy consistency required to put these assets fully to work.

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Until the farmer can cultivate, harvest and transport food without fear of being killed, kidnapped, taxed by criminals or driven from the land, talk of food security will remain largely rhetorical.

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