“Meat don cost pass house rent.”
That was the punchline from a tired trader at Mile 12 last week. Nobody laughed, because these days, it’s not a joke.
A kilogram of beef now sells between ₦6,500 and ₦8,000, nearly double what it cost just 18 months ago. Turkey is ₦9,500 per kilo, while chicken clings to ₦6,000 like it’s still affordable. For most Nigerians, meat is no longer part of daily life. It has become a rare treat, or a symbol of suffering.
As of May 2025, Nigeria’s food inflation stood at 21.14% year-on-year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Just last year, in June 2024, it hit a frightening 40.87%, the highest in decades.
The result is that the average household now spends more than 60% of its income just trying to eat. And yet, they’re eating less.
This is beyond beef or turkey, it’s about what happens to a society when protein, the most basic fuel for life, becomes a luxury item.
A Plate Half Full — Or Half Empty?
The World Bank warned that Nigerians were already spending over half their income on food in 2022. Two years later, we’ve crossed 60%. The pressure is breaking families. A 2024 survey by SBM Intelligence found that 72% of Nigerians have either reduced or completely removed meat from their diets due to cost.
And this is not a temporary adjustment, it’s a long-term slide. Per capita meat consumption in Nigeria is projected to drop to 18.3 kg in 2025, a noticeable dip from 20.1 kg in 2023. And while the overall meat market is expected to reach 4.97 billion kg by 2030, that growth is slowing. Demand is growing, but affordability is collapsing.
The street food industry is already feeling the impact, with vendors across Lagos and Abuja reporting a 30–40% drop in demand for meat-based dishes. “People still want suya,” one vendor said. “But now they just buy the pepper and onions.”
What’s Behind This Food Crisis?
This is both a price hike and a structural breakdown. Several overlapping forces are pushing meat, and food in general, out of reach:
- Currency devaluation: The naira has lost significant value, making imported meat products and feed more expensive.
- Insecurity in food-producing regions: Herdsmen-farmer conflicts, kidnappings, and rural banditry have disrupted beef and poultry supply chains.
- Input inflation: Feed, fertilisers, and farm inputs have more than doubled in cost since fuel subsidies ended.
- Policy failures: Agricultural programmes like the Anchor Borrowers’ Scheme promised self-sufficiency. But with just 0.8% expected annual growth in meat production till 2028, the reality has fallen far short.
Worse still, Nigeria is still importing large volumes of processed meat. That makes local prices vulnerable to exchange rate shocks and international market disruptions. We are importing problems we should be solving.
What Happens When a Country Can’t Afford Protein?
This is no longer limited to hunger, national health and productivity are involved.
Children are growing up with protein deficiencies. The long-term effects? Stunted growth, weak immune systems, and reduced cognitive development. Adults are not spared. Malnutrition is becoming an epidemic, even among the employed.
What used to be “pepper soup” is now just “pepper.” Rice and stew? Most times, no meat. Egg? Nonsense, ₦250 for one? Try beans.
We’re now watching a silent decline in national nutrition. It’s not loud, it doesn’t trend like fuel price hikes, but it’s dangerous.
Adapting or Settling?
To cope, many households are now turning to cheaper, plant-based substitutes. Beans, soybeans, groundnuts, they’re cheaper, yes, but not always nutritionally complete. People are adapting, but is this adaptation, or quiet surrender?
There’s also something more subtle happening; cultural loss. In Nigeria, meat is more than food, it’s tradition, it’s hospitality, it’s celebration. Now, hosts apologise for not serving meat. Weddings ration chicken. Children grow up not knowing what “titus” fish tastes like.
Food is Now a Class Divider
With protein vanishing from people’s plates, it becomes a sign of privilege. In gated estates and on Instagram, meals are still loaded with goat meat, grilled chicken, prawns. But in the trenches, people scrape pots for flavour. Bread now costs ₦1,700. The average market woman doesn’t buy loaves anymore, she buys slices.
This is how inequality begins to taste.
What Can Be Done?
This crisis demands more than condolences. Nigeria must rethink its food systems urgently.
- Invest in local feed production: If we can reduce feed import dependency, poultry and livestock prices will drop.
- Secure farming zones: No farmer will raise animals if they fear being killed or kidnapped.
- Modernise storage and transport: Post-harvest losses are killing the little we produce.
- Subsidise essential inputs: Support for fertilisers, hatcheries, and cold chains will help reduce price pressures.
More importantly, food security should no longer be treated as an agricultural problem. It is a national emergency. No nation develops while its citizens are hungry.
Finally
When meat becomes a luxury, hope follows closely behind.
It is not only food that is shrinking on our plates, it is our pride, our dignity, our sense of worth.
We must stop pretending this is normal. It is not.
We used to ask, “Is there meat in the soup?”
Now we ask, “Is there soup at all?”
