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

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, 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.

By Eko John Nicholas

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 the past capitalist governments’ policies  have also contributed 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 the current food crisis ravaging 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, acclaimed as 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 government. These include 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. Also, there is hardly agriculture loans with low or no interests; vet drugs at cheap rates and many other 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 being cultivated, Nigeria shouldn’t have business with 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

The working and poor masses of this country have never had respite in their ability to buy food items at low prices under the 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 “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 deprive agriculture the needed investments to produce sufficient food for the populace.

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 goes for as much as N100,000. Beans, which is a staple food for most families, providing cheap plant protein source is presently out reach for poor households, as a Congo of 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 motive is profit maximization. In order to beat the current 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.

To sustain their profit, these companies are drawing more sweat and blood from the poor livestock and fish farmers, who have to cope with incessant hike in feed prices. 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.

The 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.

GOVERNMENT’S AGRICULTURAL INTERVENTION PROGRAMS

Recall that in June last year, the Tinubu administration declared emergency on the worsening food security, promising to support farmers with grains and fertilizers. The promised supports, though tokenistic, never benefit the poor majority of farmers in rural areas across the country who produce the bulk of food commodities consumed across the 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.

ONLY PLANNED ECONOMY CAN RESOLVE FOOD AND HUNGER CRISIS

Conclusively, flowing from above, it’s crystal clear that with the continuous implementation 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 agriculture, the hope of producing sufficient food to feed the teeming population of Nigeria would remain a mirage. This also means food insecurity and crisis 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 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 should first for the abovementioned demands. 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, transportation 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 a 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.