Minister explains how food prices come down

 

The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Sen. Abubakar Kyari has said that President Tinubu emergency declaration on food security had positively impacted in bringing down prices, saying the challenge now was how to make cultivation attractive to farmers.

Sen. Kyari, giving an account of his ministry's achievement at Arise Television, said President Bola Amed Tinubu's strategic emergency declaration on food security has positively reduced prices as against high inflation occasioned by COVID-19 and the 2022 flood impact on agriculture. He added that the extensive wet and dry season farming of 2023-24 in the states of the north, with other states, was very productive for food availability.

The Minister posited that President Tinubu's emergency declaration on food security had worked effectively to crash food prices from what was inherited as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2022 flood disaster, saying what would have happened without those actions being taken.

Kyari pointed that the directive to embark on dry and wet seasons on wheat, rice, maize, beans and cassava had tremendously impacted on food security as about 100 hectares of wheat was cultivated through the Federal Government's support in about fifteen states of the North while rice was planted in all the states of the Federation including FCT during the wet season of 2024.

The second phase of the dry season also ensured the cultivation of rice, maize, beans, and cassava in some states in the North, according to the Minister.

Some of the excerpts of the Minister in interview read " Let me start with your introduction about the state of emergency being declared by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in 2023 shortly after he was sworn in. It was obvious the country was sliding into a food shortage as the population is growing, with food unavailability and affordability. We will all recall that at the time that there were so many factors, including COVID-19 of five years ago negatively impacting food security, with the 2022 flooding and Central Bank of Nigeria ( CBN) redesigned of Naira policy that made cash scarce to farmers in the rural areas. The Naira scarcity compelled farmers to crash their produce prices to be able to raise cash for harvest at the time in October 2022, and down the lane March 2023, in preparation for wet season planting."

The Minister pointed to the concerns being expressed by the Food and Agricultural Organization ( FAO) at the time as regards scarcity, saying he wondered if many people had known the food prices situation the government inherited, they would have known the much effort the present administration had put in place to forestall food deficit in 2024.

" For the first time in a long while, Nigeria had cultivated over 100 hectares of wheat across 15 producing states in Nigeria, especially in the northern part of the country. The second phase of the dry season includes rice, maize, beans, and cassava occurred in a lot of states in the North. But the wet season of 2024 witnessed support for rice cultivation across all 36 states, including the FCT. All these are efforts from the government to make sure the food is available. And I can beat my chest that food prices have come down contrary to what my brother, who spoke earlier, had said," said the Minister.

He also asked the critic whether " He has found out what price used to be before now that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu took over. If all those steps were not taken, I wonder where we would have been by now. As I am talking to you, the food prices have been stabilized and come down with maize selling between N40k and N42k per bag. Even as I am talking now, we have to balance consumers' welfare and farmers' because the latter are already complaining about low prices that is not favourable to cultivation."