Feeding
Africa
Africa's food security challenge demands industrial-scale solutions. Dangote Group's food businesses — flour milling, sugar refining, and fertiliser production — form the backbone of domestic food supply across West Africa, reducing import dependence and stabilising food prices for millions of families.
Africa's Food
Security Gap
Sub-Saharan Africa spends over $35 billion annually importing food — a structural vulnerability that drives inflation, limits foreign exchange reserves and leaves populations exposed to global commodity price shocks. Nigeria alone imports 4-5 million tonnes of wheat annually.
Africa's fertiliser dependency is equally acute. Over 70% of African smallholder farmers have limited or no access to affordable fertiliser, constraining yields to a fraction of their potential and perpetuating rural poverty cycles. The continent imports over 90% of its fertiliser needs.
Dangote Group's industrial food businesses represent a direct, scaled response to these challenges — building the domestic production capacity that Africa needs to feed itself without dependency on global commodity markets.
Dangote's Food Security Pillars
The Dangote Fertiliser plant at Lekki is Africa's largest urea plant and the second-largest in the world — with a current capacity of 3 million tonnes per year expanding to 12 million tonnes by 2030 (making it the world's largest).
By producing urea domestically from Nigerian natural gas, the plant breaks Africa's fertiliser import dependency, enabling smallholder farmers across the continent to access affordable inputs that triple crop yields. Nigerian farmers previously paid $800+ per tonne for imported urea; domestic production brings this below $300. During the 2026 Suez/Red Sea shipping disruptions, Dangote Fertiliser was the only reliable supplier for several West African nations.
With 2.7 million tonnes of annual milling capacity across plants in Apapa (Lagos), Kano and Calabar, Dangote Flour Mills is Nigeria's largest flour producer. The Group processes wheat into bread flour, semolina, pasta and noodles — providing affordable staple foods to over 200 million Nigerians.
Dangote Flour is developing wheat cultivation partnerships in Northern Nigeria to reduce raw material import dependence — part of a broader Vision 2030 target to source 40% of wheat requirements domestically by 2030, creating income for 75,000+ Nigerian wheat farmers in the process.
Dangote Sugar Refinery is Africa's largest sugar refinery, processing 1.44 million tonnes of refined white sugar annually from its Apapa, Lagos facility. Its backward integration strategy — developing sugar cane estates in Nasarawa, Taraba and Adamawa states — is reducing import dependence and creating agricultural employment in Nigeria's Middle Belt.
The Dangote Sugar Backward Integration Programme (BIP) aims to achieve 100% self-sufficiency in raw cane sugar by 2026 — transforming Nigeria from Africa's largest sugar importer into a regional exporter while creating livelihoods for over 40,000 outgrower farmers.
ADF Nutrition Programmes
The Aliko Dangote Foundation's nutrition programmes complement the Group's industrial food businesses — addressing the acute malnutrition that persists even where food is available but unaffordable. The ADF has committed over $750 million to nutrition interventions across Africa.
SAM Programme
$100M commitment to treating Severe Acute Malnutrition in children under 5. Over 1 million children treated across Nigeria, Ethiopia and DRC.
Gates Foundation Partnership
Joint $100M programme with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Contributed to WHO declaring Nigeria polio-free in 2015; now targeting malnutrition.
School Feeding
200,000+ school meals served daily near Group operations, improving attendance and nutritional outcomes in host community schools.
Rice Distribution
Annual distribution of 1M+ bags of rice to vulnerable households across Nigeria. COVID-19 emergency food response reached 3M+ families in 2020.
Africa's Industrial
Food Sovereign
By 2030, Dangote Group's Vision targets a transformed food security position for Africa: 12 million tonnes of urea annually from the world's largest fertiliser complex, enabling 50 million African farmers to double crop yields; domestic grain and sugar processing that eliminates Nigeria's $2.5Bn food import bill; and a rice production programme scaling to 500,000 tonnes annually.
From 3M to 12M tonnes — enabling 50M+ African farmers
From near-0 to 40% local sourcing for flour mills
Nigerian sugar BIP: full domestic supply chain by 2026