We Are Working To Crash Food Prices – FG Assures

The Federal Government has reaffirmed its commitment to addressing food inflation affecting the lives of the citizens.

Naija News reports that the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari, stated this while addressing newsmen about plans of the government to bring down high food prices in the market.

The video of the press engagement was posted by Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Nentawe Yilwatda, on his 𝕏 handle on Monday.

Kyari explained that the high prices of food items in the market were caused by market factors and the activities of hoarders.

He, however, noted that the government’s policies and increase in food production in 2024 were already addressing the factors that caused high food prices in the market.

The Minister of Agriculture assured that the government was committed to making food available and affordable for the citizens.

He highlighted the government’s dry-season farming project that aims to make the cultivation of staple foods an all-season project to increase availability.

His words: “I have always said it from time immemorial, market prices are determined by supply and demand, simple microeconomics. What happened at that time was challenge of high demand and low supply. But for 2024, I have said it, we had a positive harvest which means that we have more supply than previous years.

“And that is what is possible and it was a deliberate attempt by Mr. President to make sure that we bring down food inflation to the bearest minimum. We’re not we’re not relenting, we’re looking at price stabilization mechanisms. Within the next two weeks, we’re going to roll out the stabilization and also further dampen and bring down the price without discouraging local production.

“We have seen, for instance, last year, when Padi Rice was going for ₦780,000 per tonne, the cost of producing that tonne was ₦350,000. So we felt there is still that margin, somebody somewhere is making an arbitrage that is not in line with government’s agenda.

“Whereas the farmer is getting 350,000, so who is making all that much? So it could be in the market. Now we have seen people that are hoarding are bringing the foodstuff out because they bought it at a high price and they don’t want to make any losses. So we’re also discouraging hoarding at the same time.

“We have done first season, the first part of the dry season in November, we are now going into the second part of the dry season, and we are going to do almost three cycles of dry season and then we go into the big wet season. So hopefully, we are going to have a situation where we’re going to make it a tradition to have all year round harvesting of staple crops. We will hopefully be self-sufficient and the issue of affordability, we’re tackling the affordability.”