What do you believe is the single most important factor driving up the cost of living in Nigeria?

According to food and agriculture organization FAO, food security is attained when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.

The inability of a country to meet these criteria is often described as food insecurity.

Nigeria is richly blessed with human and natural resources and shouldn’t be characterized with hunger, poverty and food insecurity.

Nigeria has an agriculture area of 70.8 million hectares, of which 34 million hectares are arable. We have abundant water resources and a youthful population who are willing and able to work.

Nigeria’s economic strength lies in the agriculture sector, which accounts for 35% of its total employment. It also provides raw materials and a livelihood for most Nigerians through provision of jobs.

Agriculture is central to Nigeria’s socio-economic development because of its ability to create employment, food security, poverty reduction, earn foreign exchange and rural development. It was our main source of foreign exchange earner before the structural change in the Nigerian economy in the 1960s upon the discovery of crude oil.

Hunger and food insecurity worsened over a period due to due to several factors including food inflation which is presently above 40%. The situation worsened over the years due to the Covid 19 crisis and the Russia/Ukraine war causing supply chain disruption. Governments inhuman and untimely policies such as the removal of fuel subsidy led to an increase in the cost of transportation and the move to unify forex rates by floating the naira contributed to the crisis.

Some of the factors that contribute to food insecurity in Nigeria includes, climate change, conflicts and insecurity (herders and farmers crisis), poor policy implementation, inefficient agricultural practices, post-harvest losses, low budgetary allocation, drought, extreme temperature and flooding.

The government can mitigate the crisis and drive us towards food security through good policies such as

(1) Access to farmland. Its very difficult for investors and agriculture entrepreneurs to get land allocated to them from state governments. Bureaucratic bottlenecks from government officials who demand bribes make the process cumbersome.

(2) Provision of tractors and modern farming equipment. Government should provide modern farming equipment for land clearing, ploughing, harrowing and planting. The equipment should be handed to farming cooperatives within the local government.

(3) Provision of irrigation facilities. This will encourage all year and improved production.

(4) Ban open grazing. This will reduce conflicts between herders/ farmers and increase productivity. Government should relocate herders to ranches.

(5) Provision of improved and affordable quality seeds, herbicides, insecticides and fertilizers.

(6) Provision of low interest loans and grants. Government must encourage farmers by provision of low interest loans and grants to improve productivity and livelihood of farmers

(7) Provision of accessible farm roads to limit post-harvest losses. Most of the roads leading to farm are impassable, farmers mostly move their produce on bikes which takes a longer period of time

(8) Enable Agric extension services and regular training of farmers by introducing them to modern agriculture techniques and practices.