Editorial: Food Price Crash and Empty Buffer Storage

 

The recent declaration by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of Nigeria, through the Minister of State, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security ( FMAFS), Sen. Sabi Abdullahi, ordering the Federal Executive Committee to immediately embark on food prices crashing to ensure accessibility, availability, and affordability, is very commendable in giving succour to poor Nigerian citizens. Still, our curiosity is how this directive can be made effective with empty buffer storage across the states.

We are all aware that this kind of order will be easily effective if there has been long-term preparation towards enhanced productivity, with an efficient storage infrastructure to save food ahead of any crisis.

 The question is do we have all functional food security mechanisms in place? If we do, how effective are they both in services and timely fundings to be able to give a positive response in time like this  presidential directive?

Our check on the nation's silos, especially at the states level, is not encouraging, as they are virtually emptied even as at the time this presidential directive was issued, thereby making one wonder where are those strategies to crash prices coming from.

We share the sympathy of Mr. President for the food security situation in the country with the evidence of a matching order declaring the  "state of food emergency" so as to bring a check in place for sustainable food security in the last two years.

However, what we are seeing demands more efforts from all levels of government with proactive food production that is well backed up with proper storage and value addition for premium prices.

A situation whereby the cost of food production in terms of inputs, access to farms and funds for timely cultivation cannot checkmate food scarcity, as the flooding of the market with food crops is the only potent remedy to crashing prices, along with inch-free barriers in terms of double taxes on the way of these produce to the marketplaces.

All these need a pragmatic planning with maximum implementation in a synchronized manner with inter-state and agency agreements at all levels of governance.

The states and local government must be passionate about feeding their citizens even more than the Federal Government, which has no land to cultivate food crops.

It is high time to let the real concerned government at the states and local councils know their responsibilities in terms of food productivity with access affordability, and until that is done, our food sustainability and surplus availability will always be in doubt, with nothing anybody can do about it.

Our position towards food security is a holistic approach to all aspects of agricultural value chains with value addition to forestall wastages, so as to maximize productivity in order to checkmate hunger. And with this, food crashing can be feasible.