Agriculture: Nigerians in the Throes of Rising Food Prices and Hunger

Prisca  Ihekwoaba

Historically, society has evolved from subsistence through to a modernised era. This has come with peculiar challenges, and Nigeria is no exception.
Household upkeep used to come from the farms and sometimes a level of batter as the needs were usually basic. Modernisation with the attendant new knowledge necessitated more alternatives with increased costs.

A realistic view would be to match the increased demand with more and better production. Unfortunately, this has become impossible in our nation, which is riddled with corruption- the nation is replete with a litany of tales of stolen and diverted or outrightly embezzled agricultural intervention funds. Corruption in agricultural production poses problems for large and small landholders around the country. Corruption issues affect land title and tenure, credit availability, quality of supplies, water allocation, marketing and the development of agric-businesses.

Corruption widens the already yawning gap between the rich and the poor in many states of Nigeria. It inhibits social and economic developments, negatively impacting attempts by international and regional development institutions to fight hunger and famine coherently and systematically.

High frequency of labour mobility, limited involvement of input agencies, and intricacies of technology transfer lead to poor harvest.
Nepotism is another issue to tackle. A typical case will be comparing the tenure of the one-time minister of agriculture, Prof. Adesina, with all the other former ministers of agriculture.
There is also inefficiency.

Often, Nigerians are told stories of racketeering in the distribution of farm inputs like fertilisers, seedlings and irrigation equipment. Offering land clearing services at the wrong season with poor earning power. Some of the lowest wages in Africa are paid in Nigeria, with large segments of the population unemployed and underpaid. Suffice to say that a nation without agricultural and food subsidies cannot properly feed its population. The resultant effect of a weak economy and earning power makes it mandatory that goods and services become competitive as demand and supply forces drive the market. Prices usually settle at an equilibrium point where it is usually beyond the reach of the common man.

The scourge of insurgency in the food basket of Nigeria in the North Central and North East has almost rendered farming activities inactive. Where cultivation is done, harvesting is impossible in most cases. This leads to the loss of revenue to the point where the farmer cannot return to the farm. The poor road infrastructure and the low rail penetration make even the poor harvest difficult to be distributed. The near or total breakdown of the security architecture contributes in no small way to this unfortunate situation. There is also a dearth or absence of storage and processing facilities.  

The near or total absence of genetically modified foods in Nigeria as a result of perceived safety issues, regulatory problems and suspected health challenges means that more and better quantities of food cannot be produced over a shorter period to address the ever-increasing food demand as a result of the rapidly growing population.
The low health indices with the resultant poor health of large segments of the farming population mean that a lot of man-hours is lost, leading to low yields.
There is also the menace of middlemen. The age-long role of middlemen in trade, exchanges and commodity businesses are all too well known.

The farmer is poor, barely able to carry on farming activities. He is left with no choice but to hand his harvest to a middleman who will then be saddled with the responsibilities of packing, storing, preserving and transporting the same to the cities and market centres all over the nation. He then becomes the ultimate determinant of pricing the goods with a strong desire to exploit and maximise profit. The consumers left with little or no choice must then find a way to pay these exorbitant prices even at the expense of reducing the quality and quantity of these food items.

The government needs to overhaul farming activities and harvest handling for things to change for its people.
•Ihekwoaba O. Prisca writes from Lagos. priscamammi@gmail.com