Agric Minister Blames Smuggling, Depletion of Reserves For Nigeria’s Food Insecurity Crisis

The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, has said the challenge of food insecurity currently confronting the country was due to depletion of food reserves, insecurity, flooding, naira redesign, the COVID-19 pandemic, among others.

The minister stated this on Tuesday, while addressing members of the House of Representatives at the resumption of sectoral debate series at the National Assembly Complex, Abuja.

He said President Bola Tinubu about seven months ago identified the challenge in food security when he declared an emergency on food security in July of 2023.

The minister said the President went further to rename the ministry from the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, and Rural development to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security.

He noted that those actions already clearly spelt out the intention and the direction of the administration.

According to him, “Let me say that what we are facing today are both historical and also contemporary. Let’s go back to history and before the advent of the last administration, the issue of insecurity and farmers-herders’ clashes.

“There are other issues that have affected agriculture. Covid-19 in 2020, considerable time in flooding activities in 2021 and 2022 damaged our food production. The policy of naira redesign had an impact on the rural farmers who didn’t have access to banks.”

Kyari added: “Usually, availability of foodstuffs reared its head around May/June when they are just about planning for the wet season. We saw it coming much earlier. Which means that our production, even though it was marginally higher than that of 2022, but it was not enough to cater for our population that is growing at the rate of seven million per annum.

“So, these are issues that have given rise to hike in food prices and also the depletion of the food reserves is also another issue. What we were faced with last year, just shortly after we were sworn-in, we noticed the trend it was going and we had to halt purchase and the re-stocking of the strategic grain reserve simply because of market forces.”

The minister also decried smuggling of foodstuff outside the country, while also adding that insecurity was undeniably impacting on all levels of the society.

As part of efforts to ameliorate the situation, Kyari stressed that the federal government in November 2023, launched the dry season farming, adding that that the first phase was to plant wheat, while rice, maize and cassava would be planted in the second phase.

His words: “We have planted 117,000 hectares. Jigawa State being the number one with 40,000, but I am glad to announce that beyond the 40,000, they have done 55,000 hectares of wheat.

“We are about to harvest that wheat shortly this month. In a sense, what we have done with the dry season farming is to incentivize our farmers to have all year-round production.”

The minister said his ministry was also working with the Federal Ministry of Water Resources to take advantage of the abandoned irrigation facilities to ensure all year-round farming activities.

Kyari explained the second phase was the cultivation of 150,000 hectares of land for rice.

He added: “What we consume in Nigeria is about nine million MT of rice a year. We produce about 8.4 million MT. In the dry season, we produce about 3 million. Direct intervention of the government would give us an estimate of a million tonnes of rice within the next three months.

“We tend to cultivate about 55,000 hectares of maize, which will impact 110,000 farmers and a yield of 220,000 metric tons. Cassava also has 35,00 hectares with 70,000 farmers and a yield of 525,000 tonnes.”

In the near-term, the minister said the federal government would soon distribute 42,000 assorted grains to vulnerable Nigerians.

Kyari stated: “In our reserve what we met was 53,000 metric tonnes of assorted grains. We have gotten approval from Mr. President to distribute 42,000. We have 11,000 remaining for strategic storage because you have to have a threshold for any eventualities.”

He emphasized that the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) would be handling the distribution, saying they were already mapping out the matrix of the vulnerability persons across the country.

He lamented that the country does not have 5,000 tractors that are fully functional at the moment.

“So, we signed a MoU last year in November with John Deere, a company of agricultural equipment from America. The MoU seeks John Deere to bring in 2,000 tractors a year for the next five years, making it 10,000.  As I’m speaking to you, they are in Lagos today, and they arrived in Abuja this evening,” he added.

In his remarks, the Comptroller General, Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Bashir Adeniyi, said currently, fertilizer, herbicides, insecticides and others were exempted from VAT.

He, however, argued against the importation of food into the country, saying 10 years ago when the country was in a similar situation, those that were given waivers imported food into the country above the given quota and still refused to pay duties on the excess imported.

Adeniyi revealed that in the next few days, there would be a clear pronouncement concerning the reopening of borders between Nigeria and Niger.

Adedayo Akinwale