As Nigeria confronts its worst food insecurity, pushing food inflation above 40 per cent, the All Farmers Assocation of Nigeria ( AFAN) had urged the Federal Government to prioritise scaling up productivity of both large and small scale farmers.
In addition, the body of all farmers in Nigeria advised the government to follow up by deploying stop-gap measures, which entail controlled importation and distribution of palliatives as quickly as possible.
AFAN National President, Arch. Architect Kabir Ibrahim, listed steps the government could take to address spikes in food prices in a chat with New Telegraph.
He was optimistic Nigeria would overcome the food security challenge and restore its agriculture dignity between two and three years timeline, if the government follows through the plan.
“AFAN is as concerned as everybody else in Nigeria and calls on the government to ensure scalability in the productivity of both large scale producers and small scale producers while it deploys the stop-gap measures of controlled importation and distribution of palliatives.
“Our organisation is in constant touch with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security( FMAFS ) and several MDAs with crosscutting responsibilities in Nigeria’s food system” “I firmly believe that if insecurity is tamed and farmers are sufficiently supported by all the tiers of government, Nigeria will restore the dignity of agriculture within 2-3 years,” he said.
On the role his association is playing to address spike in food inflation, he said: “ AFAN is in the national, state and LGA working committees in the implementation of NAGSAP for both dry and wet season.
“We sympathise with the government as it attempts to actualise its declaration of state of emergency on food security and implore all the sub-national leaders to work in tandem with the FGN to fight physical and food insecurity.
“In fact, we call for the declaration of state of emergency on physical insecurity by concentrating on sustained military action to enable optimum food production.
We also believe that concerted effort by all tiers of government will go along way in tackling the insecurity issues.” He listed factors responsible for the current food shortage being experienced in the country to include:
“The threat factors for food and physical insecurity are manifold but issues of poor politics,poverty, low purchasing power of the naira, unemployment as well as inadequate infrastructural facilities for industrial Agricultural activities,crushing c o r r u p t i o n , l o w mechanisation,difficult and expensive distribution of food items, irresponsible marketing of food items and general inequity stand out as the most important insecurity drivers in Nigeria.
“AFAM supports importation in defined quota within defined time-frames just like the 150-day and 500MT policy currently being embarked upon.”
The National Bureau of Statistics ( NBS) inflation report for June 2024 put the country’s food inflation at 40.87 per cent on a year-on-year basis, indicating 15.62 per cent points higher compared to the rate recorded in June 2023 (25.25%).
Similarly, on a month-onmonth basis, food inflation rate in June 2024 was 2.55 per cent, indicating 0.26 per cent increase compared to the rate recorded in May 2024 (2.28%).
The latest report from the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and its partners says that around 16 per cent of Nigerians will face severe food insecurity or hunger between June and August 2024.
The figure for 2024 is higher when compared to the report for 2023 and denotes the increasing spate of hunger and the worsening living conditions across not just Nigeria but West and Central Africa.
According to the report, the total number of people across West and Central Africa to face food insecurity during the period also referred to as the lean season stands at a staggering 52 million- about 12 per cent of the analysed population.
For Nigeria, the report noted that around 32 million people will face severe hunger put at crisis level or emergency food insecurity.