The All Farmers Association of Nigeria’s National President, Ibrahim Kabir, warns that this year’s harvest season may not see the typical decrease in food prices due to widespread flooding across the country.
“The usual harvest season low prices being awaited may not come through due to the devastating flooding all over the country during this year, 2024.” Kabir stated.
According to Kabir, promoting seamless agribusiness and supporting small-scale farmers is crucial to mitigating the impact.
This warning echoes concerns raised by The Christian Conscience, a non-governmental organization, about potential food shortages resulting from the floods.
Recent flooding in Maiduguri, Borno State, and Kogi State has caused significant damage, with over 30 lives lost and half a million people displaced.
The Federal Government has also alerted 21 states to potential flooding due to heavy rainfall.
To address the looming food crisis, Kabir emphasizes the need for sustainable agriculture and agribusiness practices.
As President of the Nigeria Agribusiness Group, Kabir stresses the importance of proactive measures to ensure food security.
“The current level of crushing food inflation occasioned by stresses in Nigeria’s Food System sprouting from low productivity predicated on low mechanisation, difficulty in access to credit, access to veritable and affordable seeds, access to manageable and ready-to-go transportation, inadequate smart agricultural facilitation, insecurity and lately flooding as well as drought in some places due to the severe effects of Climate Change are making it next to impossible to enable the average household to put food on the table.”
He advocated for transparent implementation of initiatives including temporary importation of food items, support for smallholder farmers, and distribution of palliatives and agricultural inputs.
“The big players in Agribusiness, as well as small-scale entrepreneurs, should be incentivised to get cheap credit and seamless cheap finance to enable them to scale their activities of buying grains and other food items from our farmers at reasonable prices so that food items will be readily available and fairly affordable in the regular markets, not superstores.
“The engine room of food production in Nigeria still revolves around the smallholder farmers who should be encouraged to scale by making them get real value for their produce among a myriad of other incentives!” Kabir said.
The farmer, Kabir, emphasized that relying solely on food imports or palliatives won’t ensure Nigeria’s food security. Instead, he’s calling on leaders and farmers to rethink their strategies for achieving food sufficiency to prevent widespread hunger.
Kabir highlighted several underlying issues that contribute to the country’s weak food systems, including inadequate energy for cold storage, poor transportation infrastructure, limited mechanization for efficient harvesting, and insufficient storage facilities.
“In Nigeria, post-harvest losses are more than 45 per cent and in some cases even over 75 per cent due to low shelf-life and weak processing or value-add of perishable items such as fruits and vegetables and some legumes and tubers or root crops,” the NABG president stated.
AFAN’s National President advocates for adequate storage, efficient processing, effective recycling, and responsible consumption to restore Nigeria’s food system and reduce post-harvest losses.
