PRESIDENTIAL INTERVENTION ON FOOD SECURITY, FOOD PRICING & SUSTAINABILITY ON THURSDAY
JULY 13, 2023
Gentlemen of the press, i welcome you once again to this press conference to update the public on President Bola Tinubu-led administration's immediate response to the current food inflation in the country.
As a hands-on- leader who follows developments across the country everyday, Mr. President is not unmindful of the rising cost of food and how it affects the citizens. While availability is not a problem, affordability has been a major issue to many Nigerians in all parts of the country. This has led a significant drop in demand thereby undermining the viability of the entire agriculture and food value chain.
Accordingly, in line with this administration’s position on ensuring that the most vulnerable are supported, Mr. President has declared, with immediate effect the following actions:
• That a state of emergency on food security be announced immediately, and
• That all matters pertaining to food & water availability and affordability, as essential livelihood items, be included within the purview of the National Security Council.
As a direct and immediate response to this crisis, a number of initiatives will be deployed in the coming weeks to reverse this inflationary trend and guarantee future uninterrupted supplies of affordable foods to ordinary Nigerians.
As with most emergencies, there are immediate, medium- and long-term interventions and solutions.
In the immediate term, we intend to deploy some savings from the fuel subsidy removal into the Agricultural sector focusing on revamping the agricultural sector.
In an earlier meeting with Agriculture Stakeholders (today), we drafted a memorandum of partnership between the government and the individual stakeholder representatives that encompasses the decisions taken and actions proposed from our engagements.
The immediate intervention strategies are as follows:
1. We will immediately release fertilizers and grains to farmers and households to mitigate the effects of the subsidy removal.
2. There must be an urgent synergy between the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Water Resources to ensure adequate irrigation of farmlands and to guarantee that food is produced all-year round.
As a country, Mr. President has made it clear that we can no be comfortable with seasonal farming. We can no longer afford to have farming down times.
3. We shall create and support a National Commodity Board that will review and continuously assess food prices as well as maintain a strategic food reserve that will be used as a price stabilisation mechanism for critical grains and other food items.
Through this board, government will moderate spikes and dips in food prices.
To achieve this, we have the following stakeholders on board to support the intervention effort of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu: The National Commodity Exchange (NCX), Seed Companies, National Seed Council and Research institutes, NIRSAL Microfinance Bank, Food Processing/ Agric Processing associations, private sector holders & Prime Anchors, small holder farmers, crop associations and Fertilizer producers, blenders and suppliers associations to mention a few.
4. We will engage our security architecture to protect the farms and the farmers so that farmers can return to the farmlands without fear of attacks.
5. The Central Bank will continue to play a major role of funding the agricultural value chain.
6. Activation of land banks. There is currently 500,000 hectares of already mapped land that will be used to increase availability of arable land for farming which will immediately impact food output.
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