Ramadan nutrition no longer what shoppers worry about. Take cutting off northeast food hoarding
All is good for households but not the farmers who have to grow protein-rich soybean or millet because they feel their profit has been eroded following the exceptional crash of food prices approaching Ramadan.
With the Holy Month of Ramadan 2025 tentatively beginning in five days, northeast Nigeria residents have readied themselves for 30 days of fasting all across the six state territories. Muslim shoppers visiting there to stash up a good measure of food items for their essential nutrition know they are near a steady supply, just enough to regain the energy that a crucial spiritual ritual of looking inward and sharing with the world would have demanded.
All is good for households but not the farmers who have to grow protein-rich soybean or millet because they feel their profit has been eroded following the exceptional crash of food prices approaching Ramadan likely to kick off on 1 March.
It’s observed that here in Yobe State food prices have decreased by almost 30 percent as the prices of beans, sorghum, millet and maize are now falling. Others like pepper, onion and other perishable foods have also seen a significant price drop, says Abdulmumini Gulani, one who a BusinessDay article described as a socialist.
For this reason, we must commend the administration under the leadership of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for his efforts to make life affordable. It’s hoped that the government will look into the issue of the removal of fuel subsidies.
This is one of the voices noticing the reversal of the food hike that the first 19 months of the country’s president’s stay in office brought. Ever since the new year 2025 commenced, there had been a sticky air of optimism flowing around the corridor of power because of the ease of living they saw coming and that is what seems to be manifesting with the surprising moderation in the prices of some food items.
Looking back to the last Ramadan, households, not just Muslims, noticeably saw themselves being stifled under the strains of costly food prices.
Between early March and April of 2024, even beyond, loads of people except the rich struggled, hence the relief the residents in Yobe State now feel.
X-raying the map
A survey cited in the earlier article was able to tour cereal markets in the Potiskum local government area of Yobe where the going value of a standard bag containing millet is ₦60,000 against ₦80,000 three to four months back.
Ordinary shoppers can now get 50kg white beans for ₦55, 000, and only ₦87,000 if the buyer wants double that size.
Visiting Damboa town in a different northeastern state Borno, it is the more popular grain maize is seeing an overturn for the better in terms of the going rate. According to Ali Baba from the farmers’ side, a 100kg bag of maize is now sold at ₦40,000 instead of ₦54,000 several weeks back.
All are good signs, yet there are concerns that the momentum won’t last. It had seemed that middlemen no longer had the upper hand over the last-mile consumers who had been maintaining a half-filled food basket while picking items at the markets.
The link seems to be the fact that surplus farm produce litter the towns and villages at the moment and it is expected to consolidate what the other 30 states in Nigeria have in their stock.
Every northeastern part surveyed, including prolific yam producer Adamawa, then Taraba, in the coming months, show massive potential in terms of bringing food security, and fresh air to sweep across the nation. Outcomes like these point to a bad situation improving, so why won’t the farmers and traders be happy?
Optimist still
Federal agencies and sub-national governments have given tangible support to aid a bountiful harvest season via subsidies on farming tools like tractors and fertilisers yet this assistance does not capture the entire demography that should be getting them, hence the intense fear about a dip in farmer’s profit should food prices be seen to be dropping especially in the week of Ramadan 2025.
It is a sort of anxiety that may likely invite sharp practices like hoarding produce in the hope that the price of essential food items will go up.
The ₦54.99trillion naira budget that Nigeria’s National Assembly passed last Thursday has its eyes on hitting a range of milestones, all of which include security and a well-fed country is a way to achieve that.
ALSO READ: How Nigeria’s 2025 budget proposal became as thick as it got
In their hearts, Nigerians under stress would feel that they only deserve relief having endured decades of past leaders struggling to find a fix for their economy.
The perpetual struggle for stability is being seen as what an oil-producing country like Nigeria shouldn’t naturally find itself struggling with, were the earth truly round.
Should the cost of groceries and essential food items have to stay permanently low for the benefit of households, although this remains a doubt, farmers want policymakers to envisage their losses as they do on charts.
Crop farmers want key personnel involved in policymaking to be able to fulfil their words and predictions like when a federal Cabinet representative was talking about inflation.
Before the rebasing of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) by the National Bureau of Statistics last week, the country’s inflation rate had been pegged at 34.80 percent last month.
In late January, the Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy Wale Edun predicted that this figure will be halved by 2025 Christmas and that is what stats building up shows, yet there is still a long way to go.
Ayodelé is a Lagos-based journalist and the Content and Editorial Coordinator at Meiza. All around the megacity, I am steering diverse lifestyle magazine audiences with ingenious hacks and insights that spur fast, informed decisions in their busy lives.
