• Yar’Adua

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The UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), reported that worldwide food costs rose almost 40 per cent in 2007 while grains spiked 42 per cent and dairy prices nearly 80 per cent. The World Bank said food prices are up by 83 per cent since 2005. As at December, it caused 37 countries to face food crisis and 20 to impose price control in response.

It also affected aid agencies like the UN's World Food Programme (WFP). Because of soaring food and energy costs, it sent an urgent appeal to donors on March 20 to help fill a $500 million resource gap for its work.

Since then, food prices increased another 20 per cent and show no signs of scaling down. For the world's poor, like the people of Haiti, things are worse, people can't afford food, they scratch by any way they can, but many don't make it and they are starving.

Though there is no protest on Nigeria’s streets today, the country is in the group that cannot feed itself and, therefore, relies on import of staple food, particularly rice to feed her citizens. The price of rice has increased by 80 per cent. The projected national demand for rice in the country is put at 4.64 million metric tons annually, while current rate of consumption is put at 2.3 metric tons.

Current local production of the commodity is a meager 525,000 metric tons per annum. It follows that the country will have to import the shortfall which is projected to cost $267 million. However, the question is which country will sell to Nigeria and at what price?
Nigerian government’s response to the food crisis was ad hoc in nature, showing that there is no concrete agricultural policy in place in the country.

According to the Minister of Agriculture and Water Resources, Sayyadi Abba Ruma, the "government will facilitate provision of lands for large scale farming and co-operatives, while it also intends to adjust import levies to reflect current challenges in development of local production, the rice value chain, especially by establishing agricultural processing centres and agricultural parks."

This is like preparing for a war that has already started and it is a demonstration of the nation’s lack of seriousness on issues pertaining to agriculture. Easy flow of money from the oil wells in the Niger Delta is said to have contributed to the lack of seriousness about agricultural matters.

Though agriculture and food security is one of the seven promises of the Yar’Adua administration, after almost one year in office, nothing concrete is seen yet in that direction. Former President Obasanjo with all his farming credentials ruled the country for eight years and left office with agriculture taking the back seat. Nothing much has been gained from the highly publicised World Bank assisted FADAMA project as a result of lack of commitment to agricultural matters.

This is May, and the planting season has indeed started. But all that is coming from the agriculture ministry are stories of fertilizer contract scandals and not the product being distributed to farmers. The colonial administration built rails to evacuate agricultural products from the hinterlands to the coast for exports. They also built roads for the same purpose. Today, the rails are in bad shape and road development almost abandoned. As a result, most agricultural produce cannot easily be evacuated to markets where they are needed leading to huge waste during period of good harvest.

The Federal Government is to spend about N80 billion for the importation of 500,000 metric tonnes of rice from Thailand and other parts of the world within the next five months. Government has also set aside 1.68 percent of the natural resources fund for agricultural research and the development of the agricultural sector over the next four years.

Available data shows that the importation of rice has dropped significantly in recent months for several reasons which include the decision of rice exporting countries to slow down sales in favour of local consumption and storage and fears by local importers that Nigerians may not be able to afford the imported products at the present prices.

In the last one month, only two ships brought rice to the Lagos ports, which serve as the key entry point for the consignment. Also, the shipping position released by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) revealed that out of 76 ships billed to discharge at Lagos ports, none will be bringing in rice in the next three weeks.

The quantity of rice coming into the country has reduced drastically since the beginning of the year, resulting in the scarcity of the product in the markets. Already, the price has gone up to N12,200 a bag from the N5,500 it was sold in the market last December. The decreasing quantity of rice at the ports has been compounded by the high tariff placed by the Federal Government. Due to the 100 percent duty on the commodity, most importers no longer bring in the consignment through the seaports. They prefer to smuggle it through various unapproved routes.

Amidst the growing difficulty in sourcing rice in the international market, government did not give details of how it can source the massive consignment it hopes to import.
The decision to import rice in large quantity was taken at a special session between President Umaru Yar’Adua, state governors, Michael Aondoakaa, Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Sayyadi Abba Ruma, Minister of Agriculture and Water Resources, and Shamsudeen Usman, Minister of Finance, who was represented by Remi Babalola, Minister of State for Finance.

Briefing state house correspondents after the meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, Olusegun Agagu, governor of Ondo State, accompanied by Ibrahim Shekarau, governor of Kano State and Godswill Akpabio, governor of Akwa Ibom, and Ruma, said the move by the government was to address the increasing price of rice and also to guarantee enough supply of the commodity in the country.

"To save the situation and further ameliorate our condition, government will import 500,000 metric tonnes of rice immediately in addition to what is available at home and in addition to what we are producing because we all know that there are several states in the country that produce rice. We will encourage our people who produce rice to grow more. The rains are here and rice takes about two to three months to mature, our people will be encouraged to grow more," he said.

He added that, "because we already envisage some shortfall in supply, we therefore, took a decision to import 500,000 metric tonnes of rice to be sold to our people at subsidized rates. These two measures are for the immediate measure to cushion against the escalating price in the markets and make food available to the people."

Besides the importation of the 500,000 metric tonnes of rice, the governor said government is also expected to release additional 11,000 metric tonnes of grain from the nation’s strategic reserve to create more availability foodstuff to the consumers.

For the medium term, the governor said "a drastic decision was taken that the Federal Government through the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources with the states and research institutes are to ensure that in the medium to long term, Nigeria will not produce only enough food for her people but should be in a position to export to other countries."

The respective states, he disclosed, "have been challenged to increase their budgetary allocation for agriculture substantially over the next four years. The contribution from the Federal Government in addition to the contributions from the states should definitely have very positive impact on our food production capabilities and food security will be addressed permanently."

But Owei Lakemfa, Head of Information of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), said Nigeria has no business relying on food importation to feed its population. "Our country is blessed with good arable lands, excellent weather and resilient farming population. What has been lacking is good support from the government."

He said that the new measure must go beyond the usual approach of simply throwing money at problems by providing emergency food relief when crisis hit. He said farmers in Nigeria today are planting less due to escalating cost of input such as fertilizer and insecticides. "I think higher percentage of money set aside by the government should go to support farmers now that we are in the planting season, so that in the coming year we avert food shortages."

He said Nigeria must take advantage of the United Nations’ plan to set aside $1.7 billion to provide seeds for farmers in the world's poorest countries, particularly Africa to encourage farmers to plant more. The United Nations’ Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon has said that efforts were needed to focus on Africa, which could double food production over a few years. He said it will "cost a relatively modest $8 to $10 billion annually.

Ban said the food crisis has a number of causes, including climate change, long spells of drought, changing consumption patterns in major developing countries and the planting of crops for biofuel.
He said he hoped world leaders would convene at a June meeting in Rome to find ways to stem the food crisis. He said the international community had previously not listened to warnings from the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organisation and others.

While lamenting the crippling food crisis in the country, Chukwudi Ebeleuwa, a dealer in foodstuffs said, "we are now importing at twice the price at which we were importing about four months ago. That is why the price increased by over 200 percent. You know that we sell according to the price we bought because we are in business to make profit. If we buy at a cheap rate, we also sell at a cheap rate but if we buy at an astronomical rate we cannot help but sell that way."

However, Ebeluwa noted that rather than being on the receiving side of crunch, Nigeria should be in the league of Thailand, China and other countries that have sufficient rice and other foodstuff to meet their internal demand. "I feel that the problem we have is because government abandoned the rice farms in the country. Nigeria has all it takes to be producing and exporting rice. Rice grows in Abakaliki in Ebonyi State and Bende in Abia State. If government had taken interest and developed these farms into large scale plantation,we will have enough to eat and even export."

According to him, what government should do is to go back to the time of farm settlements and begin to develop farm settlements so that Nigeria could once again achieve self-sufficiency in food production.
He said Nigeria could not claim to be the giant of Africa while it cannot feed her citizens.

"Whenever I hear that Nigeria is the giant of Africa, I always have a good laugh. A giant that cannot feed itself? To me, that Nigeria is the giant of Africa is nothing but delusion of the highest order. A giant should first of all be able to feed itself and relatively be independent of other countries and not whenever other countries cough, it catches cold’’, he said.

To Bolade Olajide, member, National Union of Food Beverages and Tobacco Employers (NUFBTE), the food crisis which Nigeria is currently experiencing is an embarrassment to the governments at all levels. He said that the crisis was a glaring evidence that successive governments in the country have strayed from the goal of governance, which is taking care of the welfare of the people as well as providing security for their lives and property.

He said that before the discovery of oil in the country, the nation’s economy was sustained by agriculture, adding that even then, the economy was robust.
His words: " The food crisis that we are currently experiencing is a shame to the successive governments in the country, except the First Republic.

Before the discovery of oil, agricultural products such as the groundnut pyramids of Kano, the cocoa plantations in the West and palm oil in the East sustained our economy. With these agricultural products, Obafemi Awolowo, Michael Okpara and Ahmadu Bello were able to make landmark achievements.

Chief Awolowo was able to introduce and sustain free education with the revenue that came from cocoa. Dr Okpara was able to build industries in every nook and cranny of the former Eastern Nigeria with revenue from palm oil, but since the discovery of oil, the groundnut pyramid, the cocoa and the palm oil plantations have all disappeared and what we have now is a mono-economy. We now depend solely on petroleum.

This is dangerous for a country as blessed as Nigeria."
For Chikezie Onyeabor, a business man, Nigeria has not been able to feed itself in spite of its potentials as result of the neglect of agriculture by the government.
Onyeabor said that in 2007, a whoping sum of N50 billion was budgeted for agriculture while most of the farmers in the country did not receive a kobo.

He said that the high price of food items could be one of the ways that God wants to use to expose those who have been using farmers to milk the country dry.
"Personally, I can say that the sudden increase in the price of foodstuffs in the country could be an act of God. What I mean by an art of God is that for a long time now, top government functionaries have been using agriculture to milk the country dry.

For instance, last year we heard that N50 billion was budgeted for agriculture but investigations revealed that the figure only existed on the pages of the newspapers as no farmer received a kobo from the budget. I feel that the food crisis might get to a stage that people would begin to ask questions about what have been happening to all the billions that we heard had been budgeted for agriculture."

According to him, if government has been using the money budgeted for agriculture in the sector, there is no way Nigeria would be in food crisis.
Rice is not the only commodity causing global headache. The prices of bread and other confectionaries are gradually hitting the rooftop as well. Wheat, for instance, has hit an all-time high above $12 a bushel with little relief ahead in spite of a temporary pullback in price.

The US Department of Agriculture forecasts that global wheat stocks this year will fall to a 30 year low of 109.7 million metric tons; USDA also projected US wheat stocks by year end 2008 at 272 million bushels, the lowest level since 1948. What does this portend for a country like Nigeria, as millions rely on baked bread for breakfast? It definitely means that bread may soon disappear on the breakfast menu of most Nigerians.

Corn and Soybeans are also at record levels; soybeans are at over $15 a bushel; corn prices shot above $6 a bushel as demand for this and other crops soar in spite of US farmers planting as much of them as possible to cash in on high prices. Forty-three per cent of corn production is for livestock feed, but about one-fifth is for biofuels according to the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA). Other estimates are as high as 25 – 30 per cent compared to 14 per cent two years ago, and NCGA estimates one-third of the crop in 2009 will be for ethanol, not food. It's fueling US and world food inflation with five year forecasts of it rising even faster.

But for how long would the rise in food prices last? The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler provided an answer in his comments to the French Daily Liberation. "We are heading for a very long period of rioting, conflicts (and) waves of uncontrollable regional instability marked by the despair of the most vulnerable populations." He noted that even under normal circumstances, hunger plagues the world and claims the life of a child under age 10 every five seconds. Because of the present crisis, we now face an imminent massacre."

One fact is obvious from this crisis and that is that the era of cheap food is over. All over the world, surging food prices have caught mankind napping threatening to wipe out food, the most crucial of man’s basic of needs off the table.

For most, staples such as rice, beans, corn, wheat, and other farm produce are indispensible in the daily menu of almost all families. For them to get out of the reach of the common man is something that is difficult to imagine.

Where does this current food crisis leave the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which seek to reduce poverty significantly by 2015? The MDGs as we know them seek to, among other things, enhance economic empowerment of the poor, provide adequate healthcare for mankind and by so doing reduce the factors that threaten the survival of common man.

But with the current global food crisis, the MDGs have come under threat of failure. It is feared that rising food costs may cancel the aims already in motion toward the goal of cutting world poverty by 2015. If anything, there are indications that more people could be forced deeper into poverty. From the look of things, eonomic successes which India and China have enjoyed of late presupposes that demand for food grains is likely to double, putting the world under more serious global food scare.

The MDGs which every country including Nigeria is trying to achieve by 2015 is likely to be endangered. Poverty already grinding populations in Asia and Africa is most likely to exacerbate.
The present food crisis has ultimately provided a reminder to our government and policy makers that for the country to at least partly actualize its millennium development goals, agriculture must attract more than cursory attention.

It also brings to the fore the notion that a nation that willingly or unwillingly leaves the feeding of its populace in the hands of foreign producers is doomed. Nigeria must rise up and plan towards food sufficiency in future. There can be no better option than massive farming of the large arable land extensive mechanised agriculture. The present food crisis calls for affirmative action in the area of food production. It cannot be postponed.