President Muhammadu Buhari’s order for the immediate release of 10,000 tons of grains from the National Strategic Grain Reserve to counter the current increases in prices of food items is a step in the right direction. It demonstrates the sensitivity of the Federal Government to the plight of Nigerians who are now paying much higher prices for food products. The government should, however, go beyond this directive and institute effective measures to boost food supply and alleviate poverty in the country.
The directive has, once again, highlighted the need to give more impetus to the efforts to boost agricultural production and diversify the economy. It has also underscored the merit in the president’s order to the Minister of Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbe, to ensure that all the able-bodied men and women in the Internally Displaced Per- sons (IDPs) camps are assisted to return to farming.
While we do not discountenance the importance of getting more people, including the IDPs, into farming, the government needs to do much more to check the skyrocketing cost of staples.
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) indicates that food prices have risen by about 50 per cent. Figures from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) also show that inflation has reached double digit. Standing at 12.8 per- cent, this is the highest that the nation has witnessed in almost ten years.
The indication from the CPI is that the shortfall in fuel supply and the generally harsh economic climate may push food prices above the reach of most Nigerians. The NBS figure indicates that following the persistent shortage in fuel supply and the harsh economic climate, prices of consumer goods may rise above 50 percent in many markets across the country in the weeks ahead. The impact of the rising food prices has been worsened by the sharp de- cline in the disposable income of buyers. Many states owe their workers salary arrears running into several months.
What is needed, therefore, is a comprehensive approach that will address the remote and immediate causes of the current hike in the cost of food items. The release of grains from the National Strategic Grain Reserve should only be an interim mea- sure to check the looming food crisis. Failure to urgently adopt a holistic approach to the problem could have profound negative consequences.
The Minister of Agriculture recently warned that the nation risks the possibility of starvation in the near future if urgent steps are not taken to improve farming practices to achieve higher productivity. This timely alarm requires all hands on deck to address the problem. The Ministries of Agriculture at both Federal and State levels should take the initiative and ensure all-year-round farming.
We believe that the way forward is for the Federal Ministry of Agriculture to go back to the template with which Nigeria recorded huge successes under the region- al governments of the First Republic. That was an era when each of the three regions specialised in the production of a particular food crop. The East was known for palm produce, the North for its groundnut pyramids while the West excelled in cocoa production. A return to this template and massive investments in mechanized farming of both food and cash crops will help to ensure food security.
We, therefore, urge the government to increase the present statutory allocation to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, with specific emphasis on areas that will yield quick food production. The vote for the agricultural sector in the 2016 Budget is negligible. It should be in- creased significantly in subsequent ones. Considering the nation’s increasing population and the falling prices of oil in the international market, efforts to boost food production should attract more funds as well as the interest and support of all tiers of government. Greater attention should be paid to the small-holder farmers who constitute the highest percentage of per- sons engaged in agriculture in the country. This will go a long way in increasing the number of jobs available in the agricultural and industrial value-chain. It will also help reduce rural poverty.
We appreciate recent efforts by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to boost food production through the N40 billion “Anchor Borrowers” Programme in Birnin Kebbi, Kebbi State. The programme is targeted at small farmers. It is aimed at lifting them out of poverty, into full commercial farming that will boost food production and reduce the country’s current dependence on importation of staple food items such as rice, wheat and sugar that can be produced locally.
We share in the optimism of the CBN that the expected output from Birnin Kebbi will justify the N40 billion invested in the programme. Each farmer was granted N210,000, with 570,000 direct jobs expected to be created. The nation is awaiting the harvest from that investment. If properly developed, agriculture can be the bedrock of economic growth in Nigeria.