Insecurity: Taraba farmers express future food scarcity

*CBN raises hope on price fall

The Chairman, All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) Taraba state, Mr. Bala Aji has raised an alert of food scarcity against next year, saying farmers are afraid to go to farms due to naferous activities of kidnappers, herders and climate change impacts.

This was said at 9 P. M news monitored yesterday on African Independent Television (AIT).

 

Mr. Bala Aji who pleaded for government intervention as regards security provision for farming activities said that farmers are scared to go to farms for fear of being kidnapped, killed and even be dispossessed of farms for herders to graze their animals.

 

According to him ‘’ people are afraid to go to their farms because you can sometimes be kidnapped, or rubbed or sometimes the herders may come and meet you in the farm and kill you and graze upon your the land’’

 

Aji wants the intervention of government that would restore farmers’ confidence to go back to their farming activities as the herders are made to comply to order, saying that ‘’ we want the authority to help us make these people to understand that they should follow the rule of law’’

One of the victims of herders’ attack in the state, Mr. Tanko Bobo laments over the destruction of the his rice farm of about 200 hectares by cattle saying that ‘’ they are supposed not to move to the area until the end of November or first week of December, because majority of rice on Benue belt is yet to mature, but people move their cattle around in October ending and they destroyed people’ farms’’

 

Speaking on the situation, the Agric Commissioner of the state, David Kassa pointed that government is making frantic effort to ensure secured farming environment through the deployment of Agro rangers across the three senatorial districts of the state to tackle security threat.

 

Mr. Kassa said the government is quite aware of the situation saying that ‘’ the essence of agro rangers is to see that farms and livestock are protected, so we are doing everything possible to see that all these things are arrested so that the effort of the farmers will not be in vain as we are making effort to see that herders do not destroy farms ready for harvest’’

 

Meanwhile the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Mr. Godwin Emefiele in a business meeting on last Tuesday had said that food prices will come down by this December as agricultural produce may soon flood the market to cushion effect of high prices of food.

 

 Emefiele said that the agricultural bumper harvest of this year is occasioned by none occurrence of flood saying ‘’ Infact in 2021, we did not hear of the cases of flood at all, we are very thankful to God. As a result of that, we are expecting a very bumper harvest in all our agricultural produce and if this happens, what that will do is that it will considerably dampen inflation and prices’’