Janet Ogundepo
Citing the devastating floods that have ravaged several parts of the country, the National President of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria, Ibrahim Kabir, has stated that the usual drop in food prices during the harvest season might not be experienced this year.
He said, “The usual harvest season low prices being awaited may not come through due to the devastating flooding all over the country during this year, 2024.”
Kabir, in a statement to PUNCH Healthwise, further noted that the only respite was by encouraging seamless agribusiness by incentivising small-scale farmers.
Also echoing the AFAN’s president’s statement, a nongovernmental organisation, The Christian Conscience, earlier warned of food shortages due to the flooding.
PUNCH Healthwise reports that several parts of Maiduguri, Borno State were devastated by floods on September 10, following the collapse of the Alau Dam spillway.
The disaster has claimed over 30 lives, displaced around half a million people, and destroyed numerous properties.
Also, several parts of Kogi State were affected by floods last month.
The Federal Government, in September, also warned of a five-day rainfall that would cause flooding in 21 states.
Speaking further on the issue, the AFAN president noted that the country could only mitigate the imminent hunger catastrophe through focused agriculture and sustainable agribusiness.
Kabir, who is also the President of Nigeria Agribusiness Group, said, “The current level of crushing food inflation occasioned by stresses in Nigeria’s Food System sprouting from low productivity predicated on low mechanisation, difficulty in access to credit, access to veritable and affordable seeds, access to manageable and ready-to-go transportation, inadequate smart agricultural facilitation, insecurity and lately flooding as well as drought in some places due to the severe effects of Climate Change are making it next to impossible to enable the average household to put food on the table.”
He called for the transparent and impartial implementation of various initiatives, including the temporary importation of specific food items in controlled quantities, support for smallholder farmers, and the distribution of palliatives and agricultural inputs, to ensure they have a meaningful impact.
“The big players in Agribusiness, as well as small-scale entrepreneurs, should be incentivised to get cheap credit and seamless cheap finance to enable them to scale their activities of buying grains and other food items from our farmers at reasonable prices so that food items will be readily available and fairly affordable in the regular markets, not superstores.
“The engine room of food production in Nigeria still revolves around the smallholder farmers who should be encouraged to scale by making them get real value for their produce among a myriad of other incentives!” Kabir said.
The farmer asserted that palliatives and wholesale or full-scale importation of food could not guarantee the country’s food security.
He urged leaders and farmers to reassess the current strategies aimed at achieving food sufficiency, to ensure that Nigeria is protected from the impending threat of hunger.
Kabir also stated that the lack of adequate energy to aid cold storage, poor transport facilities, low mechanisation to aid seamless harvest and inadequate storage facilities contributed to the weak food systems in the country.
“In Nigeria, post-harvest losses are more than 45 per cent and in some cases even over 75 per cent due to low shelf-life and weak processing or value-add of perishable items such as fruits and vegetables and some legumes and tubers or root crops,” the NABG president said.
AFAN’s National president advocated adequate storage, processing, veritable recycling and responsible consumption to restore Nigeria’s food system and reduce post-harvest losses.
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