Nigerians experience respite as food inflation eases to 39.84%

Nigeria’s galloping food inflation eased to 39.84 per cent in December 2024 from the 39.93 per cent recorded in November, according to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

The NBS also reports that December headline inflation rose marginally by 0.20 per cent to 34.80 per cent from 34.60 per cent in November.

However, the NBS data shows that the average annual rate of food inflation for the 12 months ending December 2024 over the previous 12-month average was 39.12 per cent which was 11.16 per cent points higher compared with the average annual rate of change recorded in December 2023 which was 27.96 per cent.

Marginal as this drop may be, it is a sign of hope for many families that have been looking forward to a time when their megre income can buy them three square meals a day.

Nigeria has experienced a persistent rise in food inflation which hit a peak of 40.9 per cent year-on-year in June 2024 before dropping momentarily to 33.40 per cent in July 2024 and further down to 32.15 in August 2024, driven essentially by the harvest season at the time.

It, however, resumed an upwards trend in September when it jumped to 37.77 per cent and further to 39.16 per cent and 39.93 per cent in October and November respectively.

The December drop which is coming at a time when the government in its 2025 budget proposal targets headline inflation of 15 per cent, gives some hope, but how long that can hold out is what is not clear yet.

According to the NBS report, the drop in food inflation was driven essentially by the drop in the prices of some essential food items like yam, potatoes, rice, millet, maize flour, and coco yam, among others, which December forms part of their harvest season.

In July last year, the federal government introduced a food import duty waiver to waive import duties on essential food items like maize, rice, wheat, and cowpeas.

The window period ended in December 2024. However, due to poor implementation and bureaucratic complexities, the policy didn’t quite achieve its intended goals.

There might still be a glimmer of hope as a recent report indicates that Nigeria has received a shipment of 32,000 tons of brown rice from Thailand as part of efforts by the government to combat the rising cost of food in the country.