Review of Tinubu’s state of emergency on food security
Food is very essential to the
growth and development of all living things; be it plant, animals or human
beings. A renowned psychologist, Abraham Maslow, put food, clothing, and
shelter among the basic needs of all human beings. Lack of food can make people
to misbehave. They can steal, beg, and even kill to have food. There are many
people who have gone rogue today as a result of hunger. Not many people know that the French
Revolution, 1789 – 1790s, was precipitated by bread shortages. According to
History.com, “The storming of the medieval fortress of Bastille on July 14,
1789 began as a hunt for arms—and grains to make bread. The French Revolution was obviously caused by
a multitude of grievances more complicated than the price of bread, but bread
shortages played a role in stoking anger towards the monarchy.”
In the recent past, commodity
prices in Nigeria have hit the roof. Cost of bread, grains, tubers, cereals,
beverages, peppers, vegetables, fruits, meat, fish and even processed water had
quadrupled in some cases. According to the latest data released by the National
Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria’s inflation rate rose by 0.38 per cent to reach
22.79 per cent in June 2023. Additionally, the NBS data indicated that food
inflation increased to 25.25 per cent, which is 4.65 per cent higher than the
rate recorded in June 2022. On a month-on-month basis, the food inflation rate
in June 2023 was 2.40 per cent, representing a 0.21 per cent increase compared
to May 2023 (2.19 per cent).
Over the decades, different
administrations had come up with different initiatives aimed at ensuring food
security. Among them were Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo’s Operation Feed the Nation
between 1976 and ’79; Green Revolution by Alhaji Shehu Shagari between 1980 and
1983; Directorate of Food, Roads and Rural Infrastructure headed by Air Vice
Marshal Larry Koinyan in 1987 during Gen. Ibrahim Babangida’s regime as Head of
State. Under the immediate-past administration of President Muhammadu Buhari,
the Central Bank of Nigeria established the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme to
create economic linkages between smallholder farmers and reputable companies
(anchors) involved in the production and processing of key agricultural
commodities. The core of the programme is to provide loans (in kind and cash)
to smallholder farmers to boost agricultural production, create jobs, reduce
food import bill towards the conservation of foreign reserve.
According to the suspended CBN
Governor, Godwin Emefiele, a total of N1.09tn had been disbursed through the
ABP since its inception in 2015. He said 4.6 million smallholder farmers
cultivating or rearing 21 agricultural commodities have benefitted from the
programme so far. The ABP was launched by President Muhammadu Buhari on
November 17, 2015. In addition to the ABP, Buhari’s administration in 2019
launched a ten-year National Livestock Transformation Plan to curtail the
movement of cattle, boost livestock production and quell the country’s lethal
herder-farmer conflict. The federal and state governments are to spend about
N120bn to fund the livestock transformation strategy of the National Livestock
Transformation Plan.
The aforementioned are the
various past initiatives that have not been able to solve the food insecurity
challenge of Nigeria. President Bola
Tinubu recently declared a state of emergency on food insecurity. On Thursday,
July 13, 2023, the Special Adviser to the President on Special Duties,
Communications and Strategy, Mr Dele Alake, held a media briefing to give
details of the Presidential Intervention on Food Security, Food Pricing and
Sustainability. Aside from the state of emergency, he said all matters
pertaining to food and water availability and affordability, as essential
livelihood items, be included within the purview of the National Security
Council. Alake said in an earlier meeting with agriculture stakeholders a draft
memorandum of partnership between the government and the individual stakeholder
representatives that encompasses the decisions taken and actions proposed from their
engagements was produced.
He listed some of the
immediate intervention strategies as follows: Immediate release of fertilisers
and grains to farmers and households to mitigate the effects of the subsidy
removal; urgent synergy between the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of
Water Resources to ensure adequate irrigation of farmlands and to guarantee
that food is produced all-year round; creation of the National Commodity Board
that will review and continuously assess food prices as well as maintain a
strategic food reserve that will be used as a price stabilisation mechanism for
critical grains and other food items.
The stakeholders that have
been brought on board include: The Nigeria Commodity Exchange, seed companies,
National Seed Council and Research institutes, NIRSAL Microfinance Bank, food
processing/ agric processing associations, private sector holders and prime
anchors, smallholder farmers, crop associations and fertiliser producers,
blenders and suppliers associations, to mention a few.
Perhaps the most critical of
all the variables listed is the planned engagement of the country’s security
architecture to protect the farms and the farmers so that farmers can return to
the farmlands without fear of attacks. There is no gainsaying that the security
situation in most rural communities in Nigeria is very dire as bandits now
abduct farmers for ransom while the benevolent ones among the criminals’ demand
access and harvest fees from farmers; thereby hiking the cost of food
production. This pervasive insecurity is what has led to rural – urban
migration as many farmers flee their ancestral homes and lands for safety in
towns and cities.
Alake said the Central Bank
would continue to play a major role in funding the agricultural value chain
which therefore means the fraudulent Anchor Borrowers’ Programme will be
sustained. Intriguing to me is the
purported activation of land banks. Alake said there are currently 500,000
hectares of already mapped land that would be used to increase the availability
of arable land for farming which would immediately impact food output. He said
the government would also collaborate with mechanisation companies to clear
more forests and make them available for farming.
Whose land is being activated?
The extant Land Use Act of 1978 has vested all lands in the state governors to
be held in trust for the people. Nowhere in the media statement was there any
mention of Federal Government partnership with states on this initiative. Under
Buhari, the Federal Government pleaded for land from the state governments for
the implementation of the National Livestock Transformation Plan. Some agreed,
some disagreed. However, Tinubu is here
saying 500,000 hectares of land had already been mapped. Who did the mapping?
Has this been discussed and agreed to with the governors during the previous
National Economic Council meetings?
Alake said the Federal
Government would deploy concessionary capital/funding to the sector, especially
towards fertiliser, processing, mechanisation, seeds, chemicals, equipment,
feed, labour, etc. The concessionary funds will ensure food is always available
and affordable; thereby having a direct impact on Nigeria’s Human Capital
Index. Nigeria currently ranks the 3rd lowest in the world. The presidential
spokesperson acknowledged the high cost of transportation of agricultural
produce and said the FG would explore other means of transportation, including
rail and water transport, to reduce freight costs and in turn impact food
prices. It needs to be said that most rural roads are impassable and not
motorable. That’s why there are up to 40 per cent post-harvest losses. It’s
also part of the reason the cost of transportation is high. Fixing rural roads
therefore should be part of government priorities.
The presidential spokesperson
further said transportation, storage and export would be improved by working
with the Nigerian Customs, which had assured that the bottlenecks experienced
in exporting and importing food items as well as intra-city transportation
through tolling would be removed. Alake said agriculture already accounts for
about 35.21 per cent of employment in Nigeria (as at 2021), and that the target
is to double this percentage to about 70 per cent in the long term. He opined
further that between five and 10 million more jobs would be created within the
value chain, working with the current 500,000 hectares of arable land and the
several hundreds of thousands more farmlands to be developed in the medium
term.
On the whole, this is a good
initiative, however, there are a lot of nuts and bolts to be tightened. The
state and local governments need to be consulted and their buy in must be
secured for this initiative to succeed. There’s also a need to audit what
previous administrations have done on food security and strengthen
implementation. No need to reinvent the wheel.
Comments
Post a Comment