Friday, March 29, 2024

Combating impending food crisis in Nigeria

About two months ago, the Federal Government set up a high profile Presidential Task Force on food security, saddled with the mandate of checking the rising cost of food items in markets across the country.

Setting up this task force with its membership made up of the Ministers of Agriculture, Finance, Water Resources and Transportation was the Federal Government’s immediate response to the exorbitant prices of food items and an expression of its determination to take urgent steps to reverse this disturbing trend.

The Federal Executive Council meeting, presided over by the Acting President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, had approved the setting up of the task force, as part of the efforts to make the prices of food items affordable to Nigerians in all parts of the country.

Among others, the task force was also mandated to consider measures that would ensure a steady flow of produces to markets.

It also had the responsibility to explore the various options to promote the availability and affordability of food items to Nigerians. The task force was expected to submit an interim report on February 8.

A week after the inauguration of the task force, the Minister of Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbeh, while briefing State House Correspondents at the end of a FEC meeting, said that the government had adopted some measures on how best to implement its plan to bring down the prices of food items.

Ogbeh, who confirmed that the task force had already submitted an interim report to the FEC, disclosed that the committee had identified that the hike in the cost of food items was due to high cost of transportation, rather than shortage of produce.

To address this problem, he said government had, therefore, decided to resort to the use of railway wagons to transport food items across the country.

With all these efforts and flurry of activities by the Federal Government within a number of days to tackle the rising cost of food items, Nigerians heaved a sigh of relief, seeing the whiff of reprieve coming their way in terms of affordability and availability of staple food items.

But alas, over a month after all the media hype that surrounded the inauguration of the task force, Nigerians have yet to feel its effect. The flicker of excitement that greeted the initiative has since given way to disappointment and despair. The prices of staple food items, including garri flour, have continued to skyrocket. Right now, the prices are even almost three times what they were before the Federal Government’s announcement of its task force. It is disheartening that the problem of rising cost of food items has since gone from bad to worse, with Nigerians having to pay through the nose for such food items as garri, a staple food most poor Nigerians live on.

Only recently, the United Nations raised the alarm that four countries, including Nigeria, faced famine, especially due to what it described as the greatest crisis on the continent unfolding in the North Eastern part of the country.

According to the UN, the activities of the terrorist group, Boko Haram, are exposing 1.8 million people, including 75,000 children, to famine in that region. The ripple effects of this impending disaster will, no doubt, be felt in other parts of the country. It’s very clear that hunger stares Nigerians in the face!

In December 2016, Nigeria’s consumer prices rose by 1.1 per cent above the preceding month’s 0.8 per cent increase.

The inflation figure for this period stood at 18.6 per cent, the highest since October 2005.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, higher prices in housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels were responsible for this double-digit rate of inflation. But as at the end of February, while the inflation rate dropped to 17.78 per cent, the consumer price index rose to 218.9, aggravating the price conundrum in markets.

The current experience has, therefore, once again, underscored the need to give a tremendous fillip to the efforts towards boosting agricultural production and diversifying the nation’s economy.

There’s no other time than now for the government to roll up its sleeves and go the extra mile to check further rise in the prices of staples, which has, more or less, become a daily occurrence.

It’s high time the government tackled headlong the various factors pushing the prices of foodstuff beyond the reach of most Nigerians, whose disposable incomes have been further eroded by the harsh economic climate in the country.

To effectively address the incessant increase in the prices of food items, a drastic, holistic approach should be applied for immediate results. The problem has gone beyond what the release of grains from the National Strategic Grains Reserve can check, at least, gleaning from our recent past experience. Such time-worn steps won’t take the country far.

The need to improve agriculture to achieve higher productivity cannot be over-emphasised in this regard. Massive irrigation and all-year-round farming measures could come in handy in checking the rise in food prices. Massive investment in mechanised farming, in both food and cash crops, should also be the focus in efforts to ensure food security in Nigeria.

Above all, there should be more budgetary allocation to the agricultural sector, at both the state and Federal Government levels, especially in the face of rising population and declining revenue from oil in the international market.

Government’s financial assistance to small-holder farmers, who outnumber other persons engaged in the agricultural sector in Nigeria, will not only create more jobs and reduce poverty among the people at the grassroots, it will also result in higher agro production and adequate food for the general populace.

It is not enough for the 7-man task force to put in place measures that will give immediate and temporary relief to Nigerians; everything must be done to provide sustainable solutions that will ensure the availability and affordability of staple food items throughout the country.

Therefore, applying a political solution to a problem as enormous as food shortage and impending hunger is just papering over a very serious national issue that deserves an emergency. Nigerians can no longer endure a situation where government continues to overlook a leprous condition, but concentrates on treating mere rash. When hunger is effectively taken care of, poverty is mitigated, so says a timetested Nigerian adage.

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