Rahma Ahmed
By Ahmed Rahma
Farmers in Nigeria have disclosed that the rise in the prices of food items at the market will continue to go up except the government address insecurity in the country.
The national president of All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Mr Kabir Ibrahim, while addressing newsmen recently, noted that some of his members have abandoned their farms because of threats to their lives.
Recall that some days ago, more than 40 farmers were killed by Boko Haram sect while they were at their rice farms in Borno State for harvest.
In other parts of the country, farmers have had their crops destroyed by hoodlums and cattle rearers, causing a huge shortage of food supply to the market.
In recent times, onions have become gold in Nigeria and this has largely been due to security issues in the country, flood and the COVID-19 pandemic.
But the farmers have warned that if the security situation in the country does not improve, Nigerians may have to continue to buy food items at exorbitant prices for months.
“It is normal to have escalating prices when there is a slight shortage. The effect of COVID-19, flooding and insecurity on food production is bringing up its head and that is why we are having this concern.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is global. Even in the US, there is an article that revealed that there are currently cases of shoplifting and about 54 million people are going to be hungry,” the AFAN leader said.
“So, in Nigeria, we believe that the high food prices will be there for some months, except if security is enhanced and our people are able to do dry season farming,” he submitted.
Speaking further, Mr Ibrahim disclosed that, “The dry season farming will be to augment the raining season farming that we have done,” noting that, “Without that, we will still have soaring prices.”
The AFAN president further noted that the harsh economy would not support the purchase of farm produce by the government for storage in national silos, in case the government intended to buy agricultural commodities.
He explained that any move to make such purchase would further worsen inflation, adding that this had made the situation more precarious.
