High Costs of Food and Prevailing Hunger in Nigeria
For Massive Public Funding and Democratic Control of Agriculture
Working People and Poor Farmers Must Resist Neo-Liberal Policies
By Eko John Nicholas
Under the APC-led Tinubu administration, chronic hunger and hardship have not only become rife, the majority of the population now face serious food insecurity. Poor Nigerian households are confronted with possible starvation due to high cost of food resulting from high food inflation, deepening and exacerbating the ensuing food crisis now ravaging the country. The devastating consequences are apparent as many working and poor families at times go to bed without food. Even middle-class families are not exempted, as they can barely afford three square meals per day, due to high cost.
Speaking recently at the launch of CropWatch in Abuja, the Resident Humanitarian Coordinator of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), represented by one of the UN officials, Taofiq Braimoh said: “The government of Nigeria in collaboration with others, conducts an annual food security survey. This year’s results are alarming; approximately 22 million Nigerians will face food insecurity in 2024, and around 80-82 million are at risk of severe food insecurity in 2030”!
In addition, the 2024 Global Hunger Index ranks Nigeria 110th out of the 127 countries assessed. With a score of 28.8 in the Global Hunger Index, “Nigeria has a serious hunger level. Nigeria’s Global Score is based on the values of four components indicators: 18.0 percent of the population is undernourished; 31.5 percent of children under five are stunted; 6.5 percent of children under five are wasted and 10.7 percent of children die before their fifth birthday”!
This is a damning verdict on the Tinubu-led government of Nigeria. Yes, the Tinubu administration alone may not fully take responsibility for this precarious state of food and hunger crisis nationwide, as successive capitalist governments’ policies in the past have also contributed to it in no small measure. However, the rabid and vicious implementation of all-out IMF/World Bank-backed neo-liberal capitalist reforms of this administration has been largely accountable for, and is exacerbating, the current food crisis ravaging the length and breadth of the country.
Food is a fundamental need of every human being. Therefore, access to diversity of foods that are affordable, nutritious and safe is a human right that the government should guarantee. Attaining and guaranteeing food security, sufficiency, thereby staving off hunger, starvation and famine would require intentional dedication, innovation, technology driven and massive investments in agricultural production and value chain by the government through public financing. This is very important, because, agriculture being nature dependent, is subjected and threatened by weather, including climate shocks.
In the case of Nigeria, while climate shocks are threats to agricultural production, other militating factors are also a living reality. They include farmer-herder conflicts, bandit attacks, kidnapping, religion extremism, etc., that have also combined especially in the North east, North west and North central, the food baskets of the nation, to make farming and agricultural production extremely challenging. However, the main bane and debilitating factor which has occasioned the present food crisis and consequent hunger and hardship are aforementioned neo-liberal anti-poor policies of Tinubu governments . This includes the removal of fuel subsidy and incessant hike in fuel prices, devaluation of the naira, electricity tariff hikes, private domination of agriculture sector and its control by profiteer multinationals.
This means that poor farmers are left to themselves, without access to farm inputs like improved seed varieties, fertilizer, pesticide and herbicide, tractors among others at little or no costs to farmers. Also, there is hardly any agriculture loans with low or no interest rates; no vet drugs at cheap rates or any of the many other possible forms of assistance that would increase yield and guarantee food security. Ordinarily, with a total hectare of 70.8 million of arable land, out of which about 44 percent is cultivated, Nigeria shouldn’t have business with a food crisis. Compared with China that cultivates only about 10 percent of its arable land and yet it is the world’s largest food producer. Because of the unproductive, clientele/rent seeking profit attitude of the Nigerian ruling class, and their inability to revolutionize agriculture with massive state investment under democratic control and management, it remains largely rudimentary and subsistent, with the crudest and archaic implements still being deplored by over 70 percent of the population who are engaged in farming. This explains for instance why Nigeria’s cereal yields remain abysmally low at 1,656kg per hectare in 2022 compared to Albania’s 5,201 kg, the Bahamas’s 7,424kg, Belgium’s 8,604kg, or Kuwait’s 13,526kg.
Food Inflation and Rising costs of Food Items
According to a recent data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Nigeria’s inflation rate rose to 32.7 percent in September, reversing a two-month conservative decline to 32.15 percent in August.”
The working and poor masses of this country have never had respite in their ability to buy food items at low prices under successive governments , as prices of basic food items keep rising due to rising food inflation. However, the advent of Bola Tinubu government has made bad situation worse off. This is not unconnected with the aforementioned anti poor policies especially the “subsidy is gone” declaration on May 29th, 2023 inauguration of the president. This together with subsequent devaluation of the naira and other anti-poor policies including hike in electricity tariffs, increment in school fees etc., have eroded the purchasing power of the masses. Transportation costs, poor harvests, post-harvest losses, taxes and levies on agro produce etc., have also added faggot to the flaming food inflation.
All this is a consequence of a neo colonial economy with rapacious, greedy and corrupt ruling elites, with opulent lifestyles at the expense of the poor working majority. They at the same time have deprived agriculture the needed investments to produce sufficient food for the populace, despite fertile arable land. Today, a tuber of yam is between N2000 and N2500, and could hardly be sufficient for a family of four per meal. A milk cup of rice is N350, while a bag of 50 kg rice go for as much as N100,000. Beans, which is a staple food for most family, providing cheap plant protein source is presently out reach for poor households, as Congo beans now go for N3700 and still rising. A milk cup of beans is now N500, up from between N120 to N150 before the coming of Tinubu administration. Garri, which used to be the last hope of the poor and working households is now a no-go area, as a cup now sells for N250, just to give a glimpse! The high cost of food items has exacerbated the cost-of-living crisis, as majority of the people now go cap in hand before they can feed themselves and family members.
Price gouging and scarcity of agro inputs
While the indices above regarding food crisis and hunger in the country are scaring, there is no evidence that the situation would turn around for good, going by the failure of the government to rein on multinational agro inputs producers and suppliers whose only motive is profit maximization. Truly, due to the deteriorating social economic climate made possible by the government’s anti-poor policies, especially fuel hike, naira devaluation and increase in electricity tariffs, it is becoming increasingly challenging for companies including manufacturers and producers in the agro value chain to survive.
However, in order to beat the inclement economic environment and maximize profits, majority of them have resorted to exploiting poor helpless farmers. These they are doing through price gouging, production and supply of substandard inputs. Because of the forex crisis, wars in Ukraine and Gaza, importing feed ingredients by multinational commercial feed producers for livestock and aquaculture production is a challenge. Since Nigeria doesn’t produce enough of these feed ingredients, like maize, soybeans, groundnut, fish meals etc., they more often than not resort to imports.
These companies are now drawing more sweat and blood from the poor livestock and fish farmers, who have to cope with incessant hike in feed prices. Commercial feed makers like Olam (producers of Eco, Blue Crown fish and Chikkun poultry feeds), Premier Feed Mills Co Ltd (top feeds both fish and poultry), Hybreed feeds, Pfzer (livestock feed), New hope feeds, Grandcereal among others continually increase their prices on weekly basis. The foreign fish feeds companies are not different. AlltechCoppen, Aller Aqua and others emulate their local competitors in hiking their prices incessantly to the detriment of poor farmers, a majority of whom are now out of employment due to the prohibitive cost of production. Today, a bag of 5kg coppen fish feeds (0.2- 1.5mm) is over N40,000, A 15kg bag of fish feed of any brand ranging between N18,000 and N30,000 depending on the sizes. For poultry feeds, the story isn’t different. A 25kg bag of chicken feeds ranging from N18,000 to N28,000 depending on the brands and the categories of birds’ feed. A day-old broiler chick now goes for N1500 per bird, and it’s still rising. Given the high production costs, a crate of medium sized egg now sells for N5000 at farm gate. It has even been predicted to hit N10,000 per crate in no distant time.
Crop farmers are not faring any better, as inputs for arable crops farming have also hit the roof. From vegetables to grains, roots and tubers and cash crops, the story is the same. To prepare a hectare of land for planting, including clearing ploughing and harrowing, a farmer would require about a million naira. Improved seeds and seedlings are out of the reach of poor farmers. Fertilizers have also priced out of the reach of poor farmers as a bag of 50kg of NPK is over N40,000. Yet Nigeria used to have the best two fertilizer plants in whole of sub-Sahara Africa, located in Kaduna and River states in the past. They have been handed to private profiteers through the ruinous privatization policy of past governments. Tinubu is still implementing the same anti-people policies, hence the high costs of food items, as transportation cost due to increments in pump prices of petrol have added salt to a festering sore!
Government’s Agricultural Intervention Programs
Recall that in June last year, the Tinubu administration declared an emergency on the worsening food security, promising to support farmers with grains and fertilizers. The promised supports, though tokenistic, never benefited the poor majority of farmers in rural areas across the country who produce the bulk of food commodities consumed across towns and cities. Where it was given, it was largely inadequate. The bulk of farmers have to still rely on their limited strength and resources to keep producing food, while both public officials and their business cronies make billions of naira in contract awards to supply the said grains and fertilizers. This is not limited to the federal government. The state governments’ interventions are not in any way different. Where supports are given by the state governments, it is insufficient or poorly implemented, and in most cases, it becomes an avenue for self-enrichment for corrupt public and private officials.
For instance, in Ogun State, there’s an ongoing intervention programme for farmers by the Dapo Abiodun government under the Ogun State Economic Transformation Program (OGSTEP), wherein the Ogun State government, through the federal government, got a loan from the International Development Associations/the World Bank. The OGSTEP is in collaboration with the Value Chain Development Firm (VCDF) of the IITA (International Institute for Tropical Agriculture) and others, to “strengthen private sector-led agric value chain in Ogun State”. Under this programme, farmers were told to pay 70 percent counterpart funding while the government paid the remaining 30 percent to inputs suppliers selected by the government thus making up the 100 percent total. Interestingly, in the aquaculture subsector, this 70 percent translates to N700,000, while government paid N300,000 making one million naira (N1m) to the inputs suppliers to supply one ton (1000kg) of fish feeds. Even though most poor fish farmers, including this writer, couldn’t pay in March this year, when the programme started, due to the prohibited cost imposed by the government plus incessant fish feed price hikes, by September, a few months into the programme, the farmers’ 70 percent share was over a million naira.
Aside from allegations of rip-off by government officials and inputs suppliers, unverified claims also have it that the government counterparts funding ought to be 70 percent, while the farmers pay 30 percent. Notwithstanding this lopsidedness, farmers’ funds are presently trapped in the hands of the inputs’ suppliers, as they have refused to supply farmers, due to government not paying its 30 percent share of the fund. We demand the immediate release of the feeds to farmers to enable them feed their fishes.
Only Planned Economy Can Resolve Food and Hunger Crisis.
Conclusively, flowing from above, it’s crystal clear that with the continuous implementations of the neo-liberal capitalist policies of ‘public private partnership’ (PPP); privatization of agricultural assets and handing them to private individuals and companies; contract system in the award of agricultural projects, inputs supplies and the deliberate intensification of the participation of private profiteer multinational companies in the agricultural production and value chains addition by governments across the states, together with cuts in public investment in the real sectors including agriculture, the hope of producing sufficient food to feed the teeming population of Nigeria would remain a mirage. In other words, food insecurity and crisis which is currently being experienced would remain the lots of the majority of the poor and working masses.
To resolve the food crisis and begin to eradicate hunger and hardships, thereby guaranteeing better life for the majority, what is urgently required is the revolutionizing of the agricultural sector and value in addition to massive investment of public funds into the deployment of latest cutting edge technologies, including climate resilience, as against the use of crude and outdated equipment like hoes and cutlasses used by over 70 percent of rural farmers who produce the bulk of the over 80 percent food items like yams, cassava, maize, rice etc., consumed across the country. Poor farmers and working people have to fight for the aforementioned demands and measures. However, the present Tinubu-led capitalist administration is incapable, like its predecessors, of doing them especially on a permanent basis, because of the primitiveness of the ruling elite in a neo-colonial country like Nigeria.
Therefore, what is needed is a planned economy, through the socialist transformation of the society. This would mean that commanding heights of the economy like banks, oil and gas, industries, etc., are nationalized and placed under public ownership, with democratic management and control by elected representatives of workers and professional bodies. This collective arrangement would free up resources currently being trapped in the hands of corrupt few rich public officials and their corporate collaborators in the organized private sectors. The liberated resources therefrom, will be massively invested in education, healthcare, housing, transportation, agriculture etc., so as to meet the needs of all as against the narrow self-serving interests of few rich individuals as obtained presently under the capitalist system. Through this, hunger, hardship, diseases and all the seemingly incurable malaises associated with this crooked and unjust capitalist system would begin to be a thing of history.