Kyari: Obscuring that food security road map.

Understanding our food security issues is important in the quest to finding solutions to the problem. Nigeria has not had a food scarcity problem. What we have had in recent years was an affordability crisis and not an availability one. Food items were available in the market but they have been expensive. The efforts put in place have been all about bringing down these prices and making food items more affordable. The inflation rate we’ve had at 34% has now dropped to 24.48%. Rebased or not, food items have really dropped correspondingly.

Not relying on official figures and statements, I went to the market for a first hand survey with my wife. 50kg of rice that had soared to N120,000 is now at N84,000. This is the best brand in Wunti market Bauchi. There are other cheaper brands, of course, but I like to give my GIWA the best. Her supplier was out of stock and he didn’t want to collect her money. Why? He said the prices were coming down and it might still drop. That is one of the few honest retailers around. I’ve also seen a bag of beans sold at N90,000 in Maiduguri. In my state of Bauchl, my survey has the price of beans at N100,000. It had soared to N130,000 or more last year but it has dropped. I realised that Borno state provides the bulk of beans sold across the country. Borno happens to be the home state of the agriculture minister. Despite the Alau Dam disaster, there was a bumper harvest in Maiduguri. This bumper harvest seems to be nationwide.

The PRO of the Singer Market Development Association, Alhaji Adamu Albasu Kwankwasiyya; issued a video statement, confirming that food stock including flour, spaghetti, and sugar have all drastically dropped, compared to their prices as of September/October last year. He gave example with flour which was N180,000 last year, is now N60,000. He called on the governor and commissioner for commerce to sanction the retailers that are still hawking the food items and other food products like bread and spaghetti at exorbitant rates. When the prices soared, the retailers were at it, gesticulating frantically the exorbitant food prices.

Now that the prices have drastically come down at the factories and dealerships, they are not communicating the new lower prices to the public. They are ripping them off in the name of inflation. It shows clearly that costs of production have been driven down, and other inputs used for the production of these food items are available and more affordable. I have seen credible reports by reputable media houses stating that food prices have gone down a whopping 40%. The Chairman of Singer Market, Alhaji Junaidu Zakari, confirmed this in an interview on February 18, 2025. 50kg oil that sold at N100,000 is now N70,000, he announced. Flour that sold at N100,000 is now N70,000, he added.

Since November 2023; efforts were intensified during the dry season wheat farming campaign of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, headed by Senator Abu Kyari, CON. More than 300,000 farmers were supported with subsidies worth 50% of their total farm inputs/implements, with each farmer getting N361,000 worth/per hectare. They were provided with superior seedlings called the Borlaug and the Attila varieties which have three times the yield of previously used seedlings, along with fertiliser, pesticides and other implements. More than 250,000 hectares were cultivated, with an expected yield of 1,250,000 metric tonnes.

The following year, another 500,000 farmers were subsidised to produce rice, cassava, and maize during the dry season. The expected yield was, at least, one million metric tonnes. This is being driven through the Agriculture Ministry’s National Agricultural Growth Scheme Agro-Pocket Project. A second phase of this scheme envisages a 93% subsidy for the farmers. These renewed farming initiatives recorded a 60,000 metric tonnes of improved seeds and 887,000 metric tonnes of seedlings alongside 501,000 litres of agro chemicals being distributed to farmers to help curb food inflation. At the end of last year, 300,000 farmers were subsidised for the dry season wheat farming with a 50% subsidy on fertiliser, and a 75% subsidy on seeds, resulting in a 98% redemption rate. The 2nd phase of the dry season farming which is commencing soon will be targeting 400,000 farmers, this time concentrating on other crops like rice, maize and cassava.

More funding would be coming the way of Nigeria’s agricultural development programmes as Abu Kyari has just been elected as the Vice Chairman of IFAD (International Fund For Agriculture Development). IFAD is an international agency that specialises in providing funding to curb poverty and hunger in rural areas of developing countries. $86.7 million was secured for the Value Chain in the North Initiative which focuses on enhancing agricultural value chains in the Northern region.

The Vice Chairman, Senator Kyari, has been able to secure an additional $32 million for the LifeND, Livelihood Improvement Family Enterprises Project for the Niger Delta. He has announced that $134 million was secured from the AFDB (African Development Bank) for the national dry season farming activities to boost all year round farming. These activities are truly yielding results. When President Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR, appointed Senator Kyari as agriculture minister, I was certain that the desired results in food security would come. Not as fast as Nigerians usually want, but as fast as his prudent and thorough self would permit.

I was certain that all that would be provided to the farmers will actually reach them. He would plug the leakages, unbottle all the bottlenecks, and reduce the corruption in the vehicle that takes the inputs from the federal government to the farmers. It would take time, but it would happen. Energy prices and other variables may be on the rise, so having cheaper food prices would be more challenging. But here we are, the prices are dropping. The Singer Market Association chairman in his interview, stated that despite the approaching Ramadan period when prices usually skyrocket, prices are still dropping. We pray that they continue to drop, and we continue to see the positive sides of the renewed hope agenda. People that make a kill along the agriculture/food value chain are already amiss as to how to make their kill, as prices are dropping hugely. They want higher prices. Well; congratulations Senator Kyari on your election as vice chairman of IFAD, and I pray you are able to situate more grants and support in Nigerian rural communities, similar to the Northern value chain initiative, and the ambitious all year round dry season/wet season farming programs. You want to benefit from the subsidies as a farmer? Go to your local government farming associations and register as a farmer. With that, I am certain Kyari will reach you. The subsidies provided by the renewed hope agenda for food security will definitely reach you.