Nigeria will not experience famine but price hikes in food next year due to unprecedented pressures on Nigerian grains from West African countries and global markets.
The Federal Government had raised the alarm that an average of 500 trucks loaded with grains leave Nigeria for neighbouring countries per day through the nation’s land border. This according to government could trigger famine in 2017.
However, farmers who spoke to Daily Sun revealed that no amount of trucks being taken out of the country legally or illegally could lead to shortage of food but that the price of grains would increase by 75 or 100 per cent next year, as many Nigerians, including corporate bodies, embraced farming this year.
The farmers who said the impending food crisis will affect thousands of families through
out the country, noted that it has once again underscored the urgent need for governments to strengthen their social safety net systems to ensure that the rise in the price of basic commodities does not trigger an increase in poverty rates.
The price rises have been most pronounced with the cereal crops such as maize, wheat, rice, sorghum and millet that comprise the basic diet of millions of people around the world. They have also hit feed for cattle, chickens and other meat-producing animals.
The farmers said that it was obvious that Nigeria would experience scarcity of maize from February next year due to outbreak of maize disease called “army worm”, which ravaged so many farms this season especially those operating in the South West region. They also said there would be scarcity of soybean because Boko Haram has threatened the farmers who produce the commodity in the northern part of the country.
The farmers highlighted that the price of 30 tonnes bag of maize is now being sold for N110,000/N120,000 from N65,000/N70,000. Similarly, one crate of egg now goes for N900/N1,000 from N500/N600. This was as a result of the infectious disease in maize that brought about severe economic effects to the country’s farmers running into millions of naira. Poultry farm owners are lamenting the high price of maize in the market to feed their animals.
The price of wheat rose 150 per cent between 2015 and 2016, while rice increased by nearly 90 per cent. Prices of other foodstuffs, including vegetable oil, which went up by 95 per cent, and dairy products, which went up by 60 per cent, have kept pace.
Meanwhile, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Audu Ogbeh, said in a YouTube message that Nigeria has huge harvest of rice and massive harvest of millet but is under pressure from neighbouring states.
He said: “We find now that people are coming from Algeria, Chad to load food from our markets. An average of 500 trucks is loaded per day. It is taking away the stock, which we need to survive for next year. We have to start buying up grains to store because if the rains finish in January, February to March before the next planting season, you may find Nigeria very hungry.”
Speaking with Daily Sun, the co-Founder and COO of Farmcrowdy, AfricanFarmer Mogaji, said it is erroneous for anyone to say Nigeria will experience scarcity of food with the number of people that went into farming this year. He said Nigeria would not experience food shortage but the price of food would be increased next year.
He said government must make money available for importation of more grains, especially maize, because Nigeria would experience scarcity of the commodity due to the disease that affected it, which he blamed on climate change.
Chairman, All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Lagos State chapter, Otunba Femi Oke, said it is not possible to have famine because many people are into agriculture now, adding that with the current intervention funding, coupled with the one farmers are accessing, it is not possible for Nigeria to experience food shortage.
He added: “We want the Federal Government to assist us in the area of mechanised farming by providing bulldozers for land preparation, especially in the SouthWest region, because farmers are finding it very difficult to have smooth operations in their various farms. Tractors cannot even go into the farms except they use bulldozers because of bad roads. We want help in the area of anchor borrower programme; we still want the Federal Government to sensitise the Bank of Agriculture (BoA) and other agencies to come to our aid.”
Meanwhile, the Managing Director of Universal Quest Limited, Sotonye Anga, said the issue is a reality that has both negative and positive sides, explaining that the negative side is that right now, Nigeria has not grown enough food to meet its local consumption demand.
As a result of that, he said if government does not checkmate what is available, Nigerians are going to face famine.
He added: “On the other hand, farmers need a robust market for their products. Every opportunity to ship out products within Africa is a welcome development. We should produce enough food to meet our local demand as well as our export demand. When we do this, we are going to generate a lot of revenue locally and also a lot of foreign exchange.
“So when you combine the local funding with foreign exchange that is generated, it will improve all economic indices and put us in a better shape because we need market to service and the bigger the market we have to service, the better. In a time of huge unemployment, we’ve got to channel our massive youth resource to the farm, to grow more food because there is demand for food and this demand will continue to increase within Nigeria and across Africa, and of course, in Europe and other places. So we should realise and understand Nigeria is a gift to the world and to this generation.”
He said there is need to inject proper funding so that researchers can develop better seeds, adding that government needs to revamp Nigeria’s agricultural mechanism and infrastructure irrespective of political divide for the interest of Nigerians and to unlock more funding and investment into agriculture.
He explained: “Nigeria as a country needs to really rethink of entire agriculture mechanism so that at the end of the day, the country will be the winner and will be richer and better for it. People will have more employment and we will be food-secure. At this moment, agricultural lending is still very high and access to credit is still very difficult. We need to put every resource on ground and jack up our production and when we do this, the market is huge across Africa within West Africa, East Africa and South Africa and when you go away from Africa, you talk about Asia, Europe and other places.”
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