PT Agric Insights: What Tinubu, governors are doing to address food crisis
The Nigerian government also announced a support package worth N1.6 billion for ginger farmers in three states and Abuja.
Agric in Nigeria: March Edition
In March, food inflation across Nigeria remained high as governments across levels made concerted efforts to address the underlying factors impacting the inflationary trend.
In its monthly report, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said that the food inflation rate in February was 13.57 per cent points higher compared to the rate in February 2023. Increased prices of bread and cereals, potatoes, yam and other tubers, fish, oil and fat, meat, fruit, coffee, tea, and cocoa caused the rise in food inflation.
The increase in food prices was caused by several factors including the plight of farmers in different states.
In Ondo State, farmers and fishermen in communities along the Atlantic coast who have endured years of incursions caused by rising sea levels and intense storms now struggle to adapt to the surge.
Also in Ondo, farmers from about 44 communities, villages and farm settlements in Ondo West Local Government Area protested what they described as the takeover of their farmlands by Chinese companies, depriving them of their sources of livelihood.
In Borno State, Governor Babagana Zulum asked the federal government to revitalise two irrigation projects in his state to improve food security in the country.
In Kwara, the government supported 2,019 indigent farmers with agricultural assets in the third phase of the Kwara Fadama CARES intervention. The items received by farmers at the ceremony included knapsack sprayers with PPE (personal protective equipment), fish smoking kilns, rain gun sprinklers, water pumping machines with accessories for fish farmers, poultry feeders and drinkers, small ruminants, maize shellers and soya beans threshers.
In Ekiti, Governor Abiodun Oyebanji set up an eight-person committee to come up with a strategy to mitigate the food crisis in the state.
The federal government, determined to complement the efforts of the authorities at the subnational level, also made critical interventions within the month. President Bola Tinubu, for instance, commissioned GB Foods Tomato Processing Company in Gafara village of Ngaski Local Government Area of Kebbi State.
The Nigerian government also announced a support package worth N1.6 billion for ginger farmers in three states and Abuja.
To deepen other efforts aimed at stabilizing prices, the CBN also donated fertilisers valued at over N100 billion at current market prices.
The bid by the Tinubu administration to ensure food security also received a major boost within the month as a consortium of mid-sized agriculture companies pledged to support millions of farmers across different value chains in the country.
The group is proposing an initiative that will support two million farmers across four value chains (Rice, Maize, Sorghum and Soyabeans) to enhance sustainable agriculture and ensure the success of the food security drive of the Federal Government.
An official said the consortium comprising mid-sized agricultural companies in Nigeria will achieve the set objectives by engaging and collaborating with key stakeholders.
