•Ogbeh Photo: Sun News Publishing

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There is no gainsaying that the world is currently going through what appears to be a prelude to famine. This is, however, dubbed ‘Food Crisis’. Here in Nigeria, the impact is beginning to be felt by the ordinary people on the streets. The prices of food stuff have sky-rocketed.

In this interview, Chief Audu Ogbeh, a chieftain of the Action Congress, a farmer and former Adviser to former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Agriculture, describe the situation as a national emergency saying it deserves the urgent attention of President Umaru Yar’Adua. Ogbeh who painted a gloomy picture of the food situation in the country said there is an urgent need for the President to convene a meeting of stake-holders to dialogue on the looming food crisis.

Emergency
“No doubt an emergency is here that transcends partisan politics and any such other divisive considerations. Vague statements about the need to invest in agriculture will no longer suffice. We must now decide and recognize that there is more to agriculture than the politics of fertilizer distribution,” Ogbeh noted.

He added that what is at stake poses greater danger than the President’s seven-point agenda on the state of power supply in the country.
“It should now be clear to us that self-sufficiency in food production does not just happen, it is designed and constructed. It costs money and requires serious attention by all. We may survive shortages, election malpractices and so on, we cannot survive hunger. The time has come to realize that depending on shiploads from other countries will no longer solve our problems. We must produce or perish,” Ogbeh warned.

Those to attend the stake-holders meeting, he proposes, should include national and state assembly leaders, governors, ministers and commissioners of agriculture, representatives from agricultural institutes, political leaders as well as leaders of various farmers’ associations. He insists that the essence of the meeting is to design a road map for solving the imminent food crisis facing the country. Worse still, he said, is the fact that many state governments, which incidentally own arable lands, have no interest in agriculture.

Danger
Ogbeh recalled that many governments have come up with several packages on how to improve agriculture in the country, but none lasted enough to make any impact on the food situation in the country. “Without food, all our dreams for greater economic strides will never materialize. Instead, anarchy and chaos will threaten all of us. At official political levels, leadership seems to show only casual interest in the matter. One remark here and another comment there, we are always professing the need to increase food production and guarantee food security. Now, we are running out of rice, wheat, corn and our response to these developments has always been to keep enough foreign reserves to guarantee imports for the next four years.

“This is no solution; it is the line of least resistance. Other nations can do the work, grow their economies, create jobs and guarantee ever improving standards for the populace. Nigeria is content to export petrol dollars and depend on import. This is very dangerous for us as a country,” he remarked.
With pain, the AC chieftain noted that over the years, the business of agriculture has come to be dubbed the business of peasants. “But the problem is that they have borne the load heroically for long and they are getting tired and too old to continue, the younger people are not interested.

Thailand is a nation of 63.3 million people, producing 30 million tons, and they now say they can no longer ship rice to you. India, a nation of 1.1 billion people producing enough rice to feed her population but boasting of 7 million tons, has stopped all exports. Vietnam, battered by war as recently as 1975, became second largest producer of rice. She, too, has stopped exports. Malaysia, too, has stopped and so is the US. But wither Nigeria?” he asked.

According to him, it is painful that Nigeria, with all resources available to her, has not been able to produce four million tons of rice. He said: “Most of what is locally produced is stone laden and poor in quality compared to the imported stock; so preference has continued to shift to foreign rice. Prices are rising and along with them social discontent and general anxiety,” he said.

Survival
Ogbeh did not see anything wrong with the decision by the major exporters of rice to Nigeria to stop doing so. He rationalized their action, saying they want to ensure their own survival first. He however, hopes that all hope is not lost and goes ahead to proffer solution.

“All hope is not lost and there seem to be a way out,” Ogbeh stated.
He advised that government should urgently get land and urgently decide the kind of crop it would cultivate to match the needs of Nigerians. Similarly, Ogbeh said the universities and agricultural institutes must be funded to produce improved seedlings for higher and better yields, adding that each local government council in the country should have a well equipped agricultural extension services and its compliments.

“We should set targets for grain production. For instance, Rice, six million tons; Maize, six million tons; Wheat, eight million tons; Sorghum, three million tons and Cocoa, one million tons. We should also revive the Palm plantations in Cross River State, Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Imo and Abia states as well as embark on the improvement in our cattle stock through breed improvement,” he said.