Food Imports Fall 7.4% as Nigeria Shifts Forex Priorities
Nigeria spent $2.34 billion on food imports in 2025, representing a 7.37 per cent decline from the $2.53 billion recorded in 2024, according to data published in the Central Bank of Nigeria’s latest Quarterly Statistical Bulletin. The figures, modest on the surface, carry deeper significance when placed within the broader context of how Africa’s largest economy is now deploying its scarce foreign exchange.
Throughout 2025, Nigeria averaged $195.28 million monthly in food import financing. The year opened with relatively subdued demand, touching its lowest point in April at $141.13 million, before building momentum through the second half of the year and peaking sharply in September at $248.60 million. A CBN official, speaking on condition of anonymity, attributed the third and fourth quarter spikes to seasonal restocking patterns ahead of the festive period, while maintaining that the broader directional trend remained firmly downward.
The more consequential story, however, lies not in the raw food import figure but in how dramatically its share of total national forex utilisation contracted. Food imports accounted for just 4.97 per cent of total foreign exchange spending in 2025, down steeply from 9.49 per cent in 2024. This near halving of food’s proportional weight occurred because Nigeria’s overall forex utilisation expanded by a striking 77 per cent within the same period, rising from $26.65 billion to $47.17 billion.
Finance and economic expert Sola Adekanmbi offered context for what that expansion represents. According to him, the surge in total forex deployment signals a resurgence in non-agricultural sectors, particularly manufacturing and industrial retooling, both of which required heavier capital injections in 2025. “An expanding forex pie coupled with a shrinking food bill is exactly what the economy needs to witness for sustainable long-term growth,” Adekanmbi said in publicly available commentary. “It implies that liquidity is increasingly being directed toward productive capacity and industrial inputs rather than consumption.”
Other financial analysts reviewing the CBN data described the development as a structural realignment in how the country allocates hard currency. The moderation in food-related forex demand, they argued, suggests reduced import reliance even as Nigeria continues to grapple with persistent food security pressures at the household level. One analyst noted that the spikes visible in the September data reflect predictable market behaviour rather than any deterioration in the underlying trend.
What the data collectively suggests is a Nigerian economy in the early stages of reorientation. Hard currency, historically consumed in large volumes by food and consumer goods importation, appears to be flowing with greater concentration toward sectors with productive and industrial multiplier effects. Whether this shift translates into measurable improvements in food availability and domestic pricing for ordinary Nigerians remains the central question that the next cycle of CBN data must answer.