President Muhammadu Buhari recently inaugurated the National Food Security Council with a mandate to, among other things, address all problems capable of creating food security crisis in the country.
The council, which is headed by the President, also comprised of six state governors drawn from the six geopolitical zones of the country, ministers and security agents. The members of the council are also mandated to regularly assess and, where necessary, review existing food security policies, trade and national planning programmes to ensure that they achieve their full potential.
In addition, President Buhari tasked the council members to develop new projects that will protect and create more jobs in farming, fisheries, animal husbandry and forestry. Moreover, the council will look at other issues that could impact food production such as population growth, urbanisation, industrialisation, rural infrastructure development and climate change. During the inauguration in Abuja, the president listed the commitments of the council to include investment in research and development, development of local programmes, protection of the country against ‘dumping’ of foreign goods and holding consultations with relevant stakeholders.
The food security initiative is good news and an appropriate response to ensure food sufficiency in the country. The establishment of a National Food Security Council is, indeed, long overdue. The strengthening of all existing policies on food security, including policies on trade, agronomy and national planning, is in recognition of the importance of food security in the country. Therefore, the idea of bringing all the stakeholders together to work towards the realisation of the nation’s food security objective is quite in order. But, as commendable and lofty as the initiative is, government should ensure the success of the programme by frontally tackling all the challenges that militate against food sufficiency in the country. There is urgent need now more than ever before for mechanisation of agriculture to pave way for all seasons farming across the country.
Unfortunately, the agricultural sector has not received that desired boost yet. Available statistics show that the federal and state governments have budgeted less than two percent of their total expenditure on agriculture in the last three years. Out of total budgets of N44trn by both federal and state governments in 2016-2018, only N810bn, representing a paltry 1.86 percent was voted for agriculture. In the 2018 budgets of federal and state governments, only N360bn was allocated to agriculture out of N17.5trn cumulative spending for this fiscal year.
Although N360bn is slightly higher than the N254bn budgeted for the sector in 2017, it was 1.8 percent of the total budget of N13.5trn. Also, in 2016, the two tiers of government spent N196.3bn on agriculture. This represents a paltry1.6 percent of their total expenditure of N12.5trn. Our vote for agriculture is not in line with the African Union (AU) declaration on agricultural funding which stipulates that AU-member states should allocate, at least, 10 percent of their annual budgets to agriculture to achieve six percent annual growth in GDP. At present, agricultural sector contributes less than 30 percent to Nigeria’s GDP. This narrative must change if government allocates much money to the sector in subsequent budgets.
We, therefore, call for increased funding of the agricultural sector so that government can achieve the objective of its food sufficiency programme. No doubt, agriculture is key to sustainable development and food security in the country. Therefore, one of the ways forward is to have a consistent, long-term agricultural policy. One of the objectives of the council should be how to increase agricultural productivity. At present, yields per hectare in Nigeria are only 20-50 percent of comparable yields in emerging economies like Brazil, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.
For the food security council to meet the mandate of creating jobs in the agricultural value chain, government should empower rice and cassava farmers with material and financial incentives. This is why we heartily welcome the recent Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by the Federal Government and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to commit $8.06m (about N2.45bn) to empower 10,000 rice and cassava farmers to boost agricultural output. We commend the intervention and strongly believe that it would contribute immensely to government’s food security initiative. There is also need to ensure that existing agricultural policy framework is tailored toward the nation’s food security. For the initiative to work, government must address the farmers/herders clashes because of their deleterious effects on food production.