Global Food Crisis: Any Way Out For Nigeria?

In the pre-independence and early post-independence eras, agriculture was the mainstay of Nigeria’s economy, as groundnut, cocoa and rubber used to be the major cash crops of the country.

Observers say that during those periods, many staple crops, including rice, beans, corn and millet, were widely grown across the country, recalling that the citizens were then able to feed well and live well.

They, however, note that in the country’s oil boom era, when petroleum became the mainstay of the national economy with huge earnings from oil exports, there was a remarkable shift of focus from agriculture, resulting in a significant drop in agricultural production.

“The waning government’s interest in agriculture in the last three decades have led to a marked decline in agricultural production in the country, compelling the nation to resort to food imports for survival,’’ said Mr Joshua Mabinuori, the National Vice-President, Association of Small-Scale Agro Producers of Nigeria (ASSAPIN).

“The development had also increased the number of hungry people in the country,’’ he added.

Mabinuori described the money which the government spent on food importation as “a colossal waste’’, saying that it was time for the government at all levels to start investing in agriculture to enable the country to survive under the looming global food crisis.

Sharing similar sentiments, Dr Kunle Hassan, an agricultural economist, said that if the Federal Government was really serious about its plans to diversify the national economy, it should allocate more funds to the agriculture sector.

He stressed the need to invest more in the agricultural sector so as to enable the country to tackle the challenges of the envisaged food crisis, while using agriculture to boost the national economy.

Such calls appear rational; as the United Nations Industrial Organisation (UNIDO) recently raised an alarm that the world would soon have a serious food crisis.

Dr Patrick Kormawa, the UNIDO Representative in Nigeria, who gave the warning in Lagos recently, said that the imminent food crisis might provoke political unrests across the world, adding that efforts to forestall the crisis would necessitate a radical reform of the international food system.

He said that the implications of the food crisis for Nigeria included unprecedented food price increases which, he noted, would mostly affect very poor citizens, who usually spent up to 80 per cent of their incomes on food.

Kormawa also cited a study, which predicted that staple food prices would be more than double in the next 20 years, leading to a unique reversal in human development.

Citing figures of the National Bureau of Statistics, the UNIDO chief noted that Nigeria spent roughly N300 billion annually on the importation of food and beverages.

The situation appears grim, as another report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) also raised an alarm that Nigeria, Morocco and Bangladesh might soon face a food crisis.

The web-based report indicated that the average global prices of foodstuffs like maize, rice, sugar, wheat, meat and dairy products spiralled upwards by 25 per cent in the international market in 2010, compared to the December 2009 levels.

The report also warned that if the situation was not urgently addressed, it could engender one of the worst food riots the world had ever witnessed.

In more specific terms, the latest FAO report on global food prices projected that Nigeria would spend about N802 billion on the importation of food items this year alone to augment the shortfall in the local food supply.

The FAO reports blamed the high amount on the rising food prices across the world, adding that the figure was 20 per cent higher than what Nigeria spent on food imports in 2010.

On the worldwide level, the UN agency said that the global food import bill was expected to climax to a record of 1.29 trillion U.S. dollars (about N193.5 trillion) this year.

As a result, most agricultural organisations, including the FAO, have been calling on developing countries, particularly those in Africa and Asia, to invest more in agriculture to enable them to survive the imminent global food crisis.

The series of warnings bring to the fore food security issues and Nigeria’s plans to ensure food security.

Analysts contend that while international agencies are calling on countries of the world to make contingency plans to tackle the looming food crisis, Nigeria is not doing much to prepare for it.

They stress that the country’s over-dependence on food imports does not augur well with plans to increase local food production to ensure food security.

Agricultural experts insist that surest way to engender the country’s economic prosperity and improve the food situation is for the government to devote more attention and funds to the agricultural sector.

A farmer, Mr Joseph Ayanda, said that the apparent failure of the government to faithfully implement past and current agricultural policies was responsible for the country’s inability to achieve self-sufficiency in food production.

He stressed the need for the government to invest substantially in agricultural programmes to enable Nigeria to survive in the looming global food crisis.

“Nigeria has no business importing food items but the problem has to do with the non-implementation of the budget. There is also a need for the government to work with commodity associations to be able to achieve meaningful results.

“Currently, agriculture contributes about 43 per cent to Nigeria’s GDP, while cocoa contributes 23 per cent. Formerly, Ghana and Nigeria were the world’s largest exporters of cocoa but the story has changed due to the poor implementation of agricultural policies and programmes,’’ he said.

Ayanda noted that Nigeria even had more arable lands and favourable agricultural conditions than most of the countries, where it was importing food items from.

“It is sad to note that Malaysia came to Nigeria few years ago to get oil palm seedlings but now, the country is the largest exporter of palm oil in the world. This is because the Malaysian government has been devoting about 25 per cent of its budget to agriculture in the last 25 years,’’ he said.

Sharing similar sentiments, Chief Taiwo Toyin, an industrialist, stressed the need for Nigeria to diversify its economy, while investing more funds in mechanised farming to boost agricultural production.

“A green economy is Nigeria’s only hope for the future; government at all levels should invest more in agriculture to save the country from a food crisis.

“For a long time, we have neglected agriculture; our economy is now solely dependent on resources from oil, which will sooner or later dry up,’’ Toyin said.

“ With its abundant natural resources, Nigeria is supposed to be an exporter of food to other countries,’’ he added.

Re-echoing Toyin‘s viewpoint , Mr Kunle Oresile, a farmer, said that in spite of its huge revenues from oil, Nigeria ought sustain its focus on developing agriculture, as no country could make any appreciable economic progress without a solid agricultural base.

Oresile said that while smaller African countries like Botswana and Zambia had been allocating over 10 per cent of their annual budgets to agriculture, Nigeria was allocating less than 2 per cent of its budget to the sector.

“It may suffice to note that Nigeria has all that it takes to attain self- sufficiency in food production before the envisaged food crisis,’’ he said.

“ Lessons must be learnt from countries like Malaysia and Thailand that are not well-endowed as Nigeria but these nations are now feeding their citizens via well-structured agricultural programmes. They even export food to other countries, including Nigeria,’’ he said.

Oresile urged the Federal Government to give utmost priority to the development of the agricultural sector, adding that unless considerable emphasis was placed on the sector, the country might not be able to feed its over 150 million population if the global food crisis was real.

Experts say that it is a paradox that in spite of the vast human and natural resources existing in Nigeria, the country is still a net importer of essential food items and industrial materials.

Alhaji Ibrahim Ahmed, an industrialist, recalled that the problem of food shortage in the country began during the 1967-1970 civil war, when importation of agricultural inputs and machinery was deliberately curtailed to conserve foreign exchange to fund the war.

He, however, noted that the food shortage problems, which became less severe after the civil war, soon resurfaced in 1974 as revenue windfalls from crude oil exports resulted in further neglect of the agricultural sector.

Ahmed noted that during the oil boom era, Nigeria witnessed a massive movement of labour and other productive resources away from the agriculture sector to other sectors of the economy where returns were relatively higher.

“The oil boom era led to the neglect of agriculture and the migration of people from the rural areas to the urban centres; the people’s exodus somewhat caused a sharp decline in food supply.

“The various Federal Government’s agricultural policies and programmes since that period have yet to completely address the problem of food inadequacies in the country because they were poorly implemented,’’ he added.

How then can Nigeria be able to tackle the effects of the looming global food crisis?

Hassan said that for the country to have a functional agricultural sector, the government must necessarily review its budgetary allocation to the agriculture sector upwards.

The agricultural economist also stressed the need for a better synergy among government agencies involved in the implementation of the National Programme on Food Security.

“Farmers should also be sensitised to the emerging challenges of climate change, while efforts should be made to motivate workers and all those involved in the agricultural sector,’’ he said.

Besides, Hassan emphasised the need for the Federal Government to improve its food preservation and storage capacity by constructing more silos across the country.

‘Currently, the country, with a population of about 150 million people, can only boast of about 20 silos with a combined storage capacity of 300 000 tonnes.

“Also, the Strategic Grains Reserve Storage Programme, which is designed to provide relief in time of national disasters such as drought and war, is still not well-equipped to handle food emergency situations,’’ Hassan said.

All the same, the consensus of opinion among all the experts is: Nigeria has to make pragmatic efforts to ensure food security for its citizens, while initiating pre-emptive efforts to address the dire effects of the anticipated global food crisis.

Adeoti writes for News Agency of Nigeria.

Victor Adeoti