Experts Advocate Innovative Ways To Address Food Inflation

To address the rampant food inflation crisis, agriculture experts have called on the government to adopt innovative ways of tackling insecurity and food shortage challenging the country.

The latest figures from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) underscore the ongoing challenge of surging inflation in Nigeria while noting that, with the headline inflation rate reaching 34.19 %, food prices have continued to climb, further mounting pressures on both urban and rural economies.

The stakeholders argued that the federal government needs to ensure fiscal discipline to address rising inflation rates adding that following the NBS report on Nigeria’s latest inflation figure, revealing that, the headline inflation rate in Nigeria increased to 34.19 per cent in June 2024.

Addressing the food inflation crisis, stakeholders and agriculture experts have stressed the need for dry season farming, institutional fortification, security infrastructure in agrarian regions and incentivising local farmers to cultivate crops, particularly during the rainy season, as an immediate remedy to curb the rising food inflation.

Policymakers face increasing urgency to implement measures that can stabilise prices and provide relief to the affected citizens.

This is just as the stakeholders stressed the need to accelerate dry season farming with aggressive agricultural mechanisation and development to boost productivity and reduce production costs while they noted that collaboration with sub-national entities would strengthen the need to utilise irrigable lands.

They also emphasised the importance of cooperation among relevant MDAs and stakeholders to ensure the success of these measures to eliminate hunger across the nation.

Speaking with LEADERSHIP, Agriculture analyst, Akin Alabi suggested that the subsidisation of farm inputs to local farmers would help in crashing the growing food inflation, while calling for the set-up and implementation of a commodity board price.

Calling for an end to rising food inflation, he noted that the latest NBS report indicates the need for an urgent action by the government.

In his words: “There is an urgent need for the government to begin to subsidise farm inputs for smallholder farmers. Subsiding farm inputs for local farmers will help reduce the growing food inflation in the country. The government needs a monitoring agency to monitor the prices of food as it leaves the farm to the market.”

“Sometimes, middlemen intentionally inflate the price of food items, and exploit the average buyer with exorbitant prices. For example, they should target major markets to monitor the prices, but again you cannot dictate food prices when you have not subsidised the inputs for farmers. As a country, we must involve inter-state partnerships, each must recognise their crop strengths and exchange with lacking states,” Alabi said.

Also speaking, former executive secretary, Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN), Dr Uju Ogubunka, advised the monetary authorities to adopt appropriate measures to further halt the steady decline of Naira.

“More emphasis should be on how to incentivise local companies to export oil and non-oil products into the global market. This will lead to more foreign exchange inflows into the country and stabilise the Naira against other currencies as well as reduce the volume of importation over time,” Ogubunka said.

On his part, an agriculture analyst and farmer, Omotunde Banjoko explained that the reasons for persistent food inflation were multifaceted. Banjoko noted that the high cost of transportation was a factor responsible for  the increase in food prices.

“It costs a lot to transport agro-produce from where they are being cultivated to the markets. Even petrol sells as high as N600 per litre in some states and N800 and above in other states. All these logistics costs are also factored into the cost of cultivation as well as sales.

“The cost of crop cultivation is going up on a weekly basis, hence food inflation is imminent. For instance, in poultry and animal farming, the cost of feed is rather unpredictable and increasing on a daily basis. Currently, a lot of poultry and animal farms have shut down in recent months due to these increasing costs, so it is not about making profits.

“Only those few who are able to meet up the cost of cultivation are still in business. So, we have less food production,” Banjoko said.

He explained that the cost of food items would keep increasing with the closure of more farms, stating that the government should help subsidise the cost of food cultivation in the country and harmonisation of taxes for agro-produce.

“We heard the government is already on it, and if implemented it will be a right step in the right direction in ending food inflation. Multiple taxation on farmers should be stopped to address this food inflation. Farmers sometimes incur more costs in multiple taxation,” he said.

Also speaking, a strategic agriculture communication expert, Dr. Ismail Olawale said, multiple taxation and adequate transportation of agro-produce must be addressed, adding that, “We do not need economic statistics to begin to explain the effects of this inflation, it is something everyone is witnessing. In the northwest, farmers bring in so much produce and livestock to sell without greed. However, the middlemen are the major problem, they buy the produce from the farmers in bulk and middlemen sell it at exploitative prices.

“The middlemen do not only buy these items but they hoard them to increase the prices later. Some even sell this produce to neighbouring countries at the detriment of the locals. They sell to the highest bidders and allow the average Nigerian to bear the brunt of the cost.”

He added that taxes collected from farmers at the border of every state during transportation of these produce were factored into the price of the produce.

“All these are underlying factors that influence the food inflation in the country. If the government can handle these illegal multiple taxations on agro-produce, the food inflation will gradually drop.

“Food inflation is not caused by the stock exchange; we must get logistics right and address multiple taxation. The transportation system is very crucial in determining the price of food items in Nigeria,” he said.