Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Sen. Abubakar Kyari has identified smuggling of food by Nigerians to neighbouring countries as one of the issues affecting food supply in Nigeria.
He made this known at a session with the Senate committee on banking and finance, together with the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning and Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Kyari pointed out that the devaluation of the naira had made food produced in Nigeria the cheapest across the West African region especially those using the CFA but movement of food across the border had become rampant, affecting supply.
“The challenge we have today is the undocumented export of food to our neighbouring countries. Today, the CFA is N2:20k that is to say 1000CFA is N2,200. This is something that was N400 or N500 few years ago. All four countries around us use the CFA which is hard currency.
“Because of the devaluation of the naira, our food in terms of their own food is the cheapest around the neighbourhood. So, you find a lot of undocumented exports which is smuggling across our porous borders into these neighbouring countries,” the minister stated.
Kyari further added that exchange rate and transport cost aside insecurity were also responsible for the problems of food supply and cost across the country.
