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Chinyere Anyanwu, [email protected]
The coronavirus pandemic and the lockdown that followed it have revealed the need to put measures in place to ensure food security in the country.
Following the lockdown, issues of food availability and supply left the citizenry fearing that an imminent food crisis may be the next challenge to contend with, with far more reaching effects than the pandemic.
Having eased the lockdown in several parts of the country, and farming season already at hand, agriculture sector stakeholders have been canvassing strategies that government can adopt to avert food crisis in the country going forward.
Speaking with Daily Sun recently on steps government and agriculture sector players can take to make the country food-sufficient and food-secure, the National President of United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Ecosystem Based Adaptation for Food Security Assembly Nigeria (EBAFOSA), Mr. James Oyesola, said the Federal Government needs to diversify fully away from oil by focusing on agriculture.
Oyesola stated that, “the Federal Government has announced that farmers are free to go to the farms which also coincides with the issue of oil price now trending down,” but added that it has “to fully go into agricultural production by adding value to whatever is being produced locally. So it’s not going to be a normal lip service policy anymore.”
He added that, “production on high scale is important now like what is happening in most states in terms of the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) through which CBN is assisting to give some money to small scale farmers so that we can have adequate food production for the country in this trying period.”
According to him, “agriculture is the nearest sector government can leverage on to get out of the mess the economy finds itself. But apart from food security, our economy and GDP must improve, our foreign exchange must also improve. All the pharmaceutical companies using backward integration, for instance, need maize starch in the production of their drugs, so commercial farming needs to be boosted to assist them in getting raw materials.”
For the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) National President, Kabiru Ibrahim, government and farmers alike have critical parts to play in ensuring that the country does not slide into food crisis post-COVID-19.
Ibrahim stated that, “the government should support farmers with improved seeds, fertilisers, both organic and inorganic, and other inputs at subsidised prices, and at the right time. It’s getting very late now because the rainy season has set in in some places so the sooner this is done the better.”
He further reiterated the need for “farmers to upscale their production by being on the farms more than ever before and doing agriculture very seriously and taking it as a business because there’s opportunity now. Agriculture is the place to be now because hunger will be more devastating than the coronavirus pandemic.”
The AFAN national president stated that, “to ensure food security, we advocate that each region should have its own staples and improve the production of that staple and make sure they are self-sufficient in it.”
In addition, he called on government to give farmers free access to their farms, saying, “we know government is working towards seamless law through a task force team it had set up. We are trying to give the farmers free pass we designed for them but they are still getting some pockets of problems from law enforcement officers. The president has made a final statement that farmers should be allowed access to their farms so the security forces should know that. I know they are fearful of some people pretending to be farmers who are not but we have to live with that pending when the farmers will realise it is good for them to register as members of the association so that they will show their ID cards and be allowed to pass.”
Also contributing, Lagos State chapter Chairman of AFAN, Otunba Femi Oke, enumerated steps that need to be taken to boost food-sufficiency in the country including provision of soft loans for smallholder farmers, establishment of storage facilities to deal with post-harvest losses, processing facilities for value addition as well as the need for government to work with the farmers’ association for easy access to information on their operations and needs.
Oke said, “we will appreciate government to give farmers soft loans. Attention should be given to this area of soft loans for SMEs and smallholder farmers now because we are crying in silence. We want government intervention this period.”
He urged state governments to, “establish storage facilities because if we are able to store most of the items we produce we won’t have shortages. Processing facilities are also important. For instance, there is glut in eggs right now because poultry farmers have produced a lot of eggs and COVID-19 affected sales but if there is a plant where powdered egg can be produced, it will help a lot. There are some things we produce that we have to sell at stipulated time and by the time they exceed that time it will be a loss to the farmer.”
The Lagos AFAN chair equally called on the government to work closely with the umbrella body of farmers, AFAN, because, according to him, “we know ourselves and we know what everyone is doing in their commodity associations. We have over 25 commodities associations that make up AFAN. Apart from the Federal Government, all state governors should focus attention on AFAN, find out what they can do for its members, like mechanisation, supply of tractors, storage facilities, opening up of roads, and provision of improved seeds, among others. Most seed companies have closed due to COVID-19 and we are just struggling to get the left overs to plant, which may not be enough.”
The stakeholders are optimistic that with government at all levels playing their parts, farmers and all value chain players playing their parts, the country’s population will not contend with food scarcity post-coronavirus and in the nearest future.
