Soaring food import bill in Africa has emerged as both a symptom of its deepening dependence on external markets and a warning sign for the livelihoods of millions of smallholder farmers, experts have endorsed.
Professor of Applied Economics at the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, University Mohammed VI Polytechnic (UM6P), Rachid M. Doukkali, said the continent’s food import bill has more than quadrupled since 2003, driven largely by cereals. ‘While Africa records a surplus in several key agri-food products, its progress is significantly hampered by a deep-seated vulnerability in one critical area. Cereals remain its Achilles’ heel,’ Doukkali stated.
He explained that while cereal production grew at an annual average of 2.7 per cent between 2003 and 2023, consumption rose faster at 2.9 per cent, pushed by rapid population growth and urbanisation.
‘Generally, when we talk about food deficit in Africa, we are only referring to the deficit in cereals and not to other agri-food products,’ he noted.
The imbalance, Doukkali said, has left countries such as Nigeria and Morocco increasingly linking on imports. ‘Governments tend to put pressure on the domestic prices of these staple food products by facilitating imports at very low prices.
Given that the large majority of small producers are specialised in the production of these staples, they are indirectly taxed by these low prices.
The direct consequence is the low profitability of small farms, which strongly and negatively impacts their productivity and competitiveness,’ he explained.
In Morocco, according to him, the contrast between thriving agro-industrial giants and struggling smallholder farmers remains stark, with post-harvest losses of up to 30 percent due to lack of cold-chain infrastructure. Doukkali acknowledged that state-backed initiatives such as the Green Morocco Plan and Green Generation Strategy have helped farmers through subsidies, cooperatives, and mentorship, but he stressed that broader challenges persist across the continent.
‘Research should be directed towards technologies that allow for greater adaptation and resilience of production systems, as well as greater efficiency in resource use,’ he urged. Climate shocks, especially recurrent droughts, he warned, could devastate even capital-intensive irrigated farming systems.
Doukkali meanwhile underscored the importance of regional cooperation. He argued that the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) could boost intra-African food trade, which currently accounts for less than 20 percent of agricultural commerce. ‘The AfCFTA will likely increase intra-African agri-food trade through trade substitution and trade creation,’ he said.
For now, Africa’s dependence on imports is both an economic burden and a strategic vulnerability. As Crises in recent years-from the 2007-2008 food price crisis to COVID-19 and the Ukraine war-have all demonstrated that the question of a country’s food security is crucial, and that a minimum of domestic production must be ensured to guarantee that security,’ Doukkali concluded:
As policymakers grapple with these structural weaknesses, international experts argue that Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) could offer Africa, and Nigeria in particular, a pathway out of crisis.
Secretary-General of the Brussels-based Farm Tech Society (FTS), Thomas Zoellner, said Nigeria must act quickly to leverage CEA-ranging from high-tech greenhouses to vertical farms-if it is to protect its food supply. ‘CEA is extremely resource-efficient, reducing water use by up to 90 percent compared to open-field farming and requiring far less land. For Nigeria, where urban expansion is swallowing farmland and water stress is growing, these systems could be transformative,’ he explained.
He noted that across Europe, CEA has become a tool for meeting sustainability goals under the EU’s Green Deal, while in Asia, China and Japan have made major strides in vertical farming and hydroponics. But Africa,he indicated, lags behind, with only scattered pilot projects in Kenya, South Africa, Morocco, and Egypt.
‘Nigeria has an opportunity to learn from these experiences and design its own model,’ Zoellner said. He stressed, however, that capital costs-estimated at $2 million to $4 million per hectare for vertical farms-remain a major barrier. ‘Knowledge transfer to young farmers is the single most important factor for adoption. Without skills, capital, and infrastructure, resource-efficient systems will remain out of reach. But with proper training and public-private partnerships, Nigeria can create a generation of tech-savvy farmers.’
Beyond food security, Zoellner pointed to CEA’s potential for job creation. ‘This is about building resilience in an agriculture sector that feeds over 200 million people,’ he said.