Sweet potatoes sold at a mean ₦790 per kilogramme across all ten Lagos markets in the week to 14 August 2026, unchanged from the previous week and the cheapest item per kilogramme in the FoodPrices Nigeria Lagos basket. The survey source is the Lagos State Ministry of Agriculture and Food Systems, and the figure is a mean across markets.
A Brief Spike, Now Unwound
Sweet potatoes spent May and June almost motionless, moving between ₦720 and ₦785 across seven weekly captures. The price then reached ₦925 by the week of 24 July, a rise of 21.7% from the ₦760 recorded on 26 June, before falling back through ₦825 and ₦790 to settle where it now sits. The spike has been 14.6% unwound and the price is 9.7% above its 1 May level. The four week gap in the series between 26 June and 24 July means the rise itself is not continuously recorded.
That shape is different from the peppers, which climbed for eight weeks and have taken six to come down. Sweet potatoes moved sharply and corrected quickly, which usually points to a short interruption in supply rather than a seasonal shortage.
The Cheapest Carbohydrate in Lagos
At ₦790 per kilogramme, sweet potatoes cost about 22.2% of the tatashe mean and roughly 36.1% of the tomato mean. Against yam the gap is starker still, with a medium tuber at ₦3,020 this week. A household substituting sweet potato for part of its weekly starch buys close to four kilogrammes for the price of one yam tuber, and unlike the peppers the price has barely moved all season.
Elsewhere in the country the item has behaved similarly. TheWhistler reported a market survey finding sweet potatoes in Abuja falling to between ₦1,000 and ₦1,800 per dustbin basket from ₦3,000 earlier in the period, which agrees with the direction the Lagos series has shown since its July peak, though the units are not comparable.
Where the National Data Sits
Leadership reported food inflation of 20.31% year on year in July 2026 from the National Bureau of Statistics, up from 17.52% in June. Sweet potatoes were not among the items the bureau named as drivers, which is consistent with a Lagos mean that has moved 9.7% across fifteen weeks.
A Wide Range on a Low Value Item
Agege Market records the cheapest mean at ₦500 per kilogramme while Agbalata Market records ₦1,200, a premium of 140%. In naira the gap is small, but a buyer taking ten kilogrammes weekly pays ₦5,000 at Agege against ₦12,000 at Agbalata. Agbalata is the cheapest market in Lagos for tomatoes, tatashe, rodo and shombo, and the dearest for sweet potatoes and onions.
FoodPrices Nigeria tracks sweet potatoes across all ten Lagos markets weekly. Live prices: foodprices.ng/real-time-prices/?brand_name=Sweet+Potatoes