THE continued rise in global food prices poses a great threat to food importing countries, including Nigeria. EMEKA EZEKIEL examines the issue and how to achieve self-sufficiency in food production.
The latest Report on Global Food Prices released by the Food and Agricutural Organisation last month showed that the world’s food import bill is expected to reach a new record of $1.290tn (N200tn) this year. This amount represents a 20 per cent increase, higher than the global food imports in 2010.
And going by this report, Nigeria is expected to spend about N802bn on the importation of food items in 2011, owing to the spiraling food prices across the world.
Currently, Nigeria spends about N400bn on food imports annually. Of this amount, about N155bn is spent on the importation of rice, the most popular food in Nigeria.
Specifically, the FAO stated, “In international food trade, the global food import bill is expected to reach a new record of $1.29tn in 2011 – 21 per cent more than in 2010.
Low-Income Food Deficit Countries and Least Developed Countries would be hardest-hit since they would likely have to spend respectively 27 and 30 per cent more on food imports than last year, the organisation noted.
“Expenditures on imported foodstuffs for vulnerable countries could account for roughly 18 per cent of their total import bills compared to a world average of around seven per cent. High and volatile agricultural commodity prices are likely to prevail for the rest of this year and into 2012,” it said.
It further noted, “The next few months will be critical in determining how the major crops will fare this year. Although prospects are encouraging in some countries, weather conditions, featuring too little, and in some cases too much rain, could hamper maize and wheat yields in Europe and North America.
“International food prices, which earlier this year soared to levels seen in the 2007 and 2008 food crisis, dropped by a modest one per cent in May. The FAO Food Price Index averaged 232 points in May from a revised estimate of 235 points in April but was still 37 per cent above May 2010.”
However, the Director of FAO’s Markets and Trade Division, Mr. David Hallam, said the rise in global food prices was a great threat to food importing countries such as Nigeria.
He said, “The general situation for agricultural crops and food commodities is tight with world prices at stubbornly high levels, posing a threat to many low-income food deficit countries.”
The Federal Ministry of Agriculture put the amount the country spent on food imports, mainly rice, wheat, sugar and fish products in 2009 at N555bn.
According to investigations, more than N400bn was injected into the sector in 2009, while in 2010, agriculture accounted for only 3.7 per cent of budgetary allocation (recurrent N34.4bn and capital N49.9bn). However, between 1977 and 2005, the government’s funding for the sector was characterised by inconsistency.
In 1977, for instance, agriculture’s share of the national budget was less than one per cent; in 1980, it was 1.3 per cent; 1982, 4.2 per cent; 1983, six per cent; 1984, two per cent; 1985, five per cent; 1993, 3.2 per cent; 2000, one per cent; 2001, 4.2 per cent and 2005, 1.6 per cent.
But the National Project Coordinator, National Programme for Agriculture and Food Security, Mr. Bukar Tijani, told our correspondent that given the increase in global food prices, there was need to strengthen the National Programme for Agriculture and Food Security as well as the Fadama III projects in order to ensure that the country achieves self-sufficiency in food production.
The NPFS was set up by the Federal Government in July 2009, with the mandate of coordinating all donor-assisted agricultural and rural development projects in Nigeria as well as cooperating with the technical line departments of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture to harmonise all activities towards boosting agricultural production.
On the other hand, Fadama is the Hausa word for an irrigable land, usually flood plains found along Nigeria’s major rivers. Such land is suitable for irrigated farming; fishing, traditional feed and water for livestock.
Tijani, who is currently coordinating donor-projects in over 8,500 sites across the country, said, “Nigeria has the natural and human resources to attain self-sufficiency in food production.
And one of the surest ways of achieving this objective is by strengthening the capacity of the National Programme for Agriculture and Food Security and the Fadama III projects.
“Currently, we are implementing the NPFS programme in 327 sites across the country. The main objective is to improve national food security and reduce poverty on economically and environmentally sustainable basis. Already, we have made significant progress in the area of crop production involving a total 112,425 hectares of land of rain-fed crop modules and 855 hectares of irrigated crop modules.”
He stressed the need for the country to seek technical assistance from developed countries as part of renewed efforts towards boosting food production.
He said, “Under the South-South cooperation with China, the NPFS has already facilitated the deployment of 53 Chinese experts and technicians to different agricultural projects across the country.
“Also, under the NERICA Rice Dissemination Project, we have mobilised 13, 495 farmers for seed production, yielding 2,211 metric tonnes and 8,334 hectares, cultivated for grain production, yielding 15,956.40 metric tonnes.”
And as part of the efforts to boost food production, Tijani said, “We are currently working on a number of major proposals like the Global Agriculture and Food Security Programme and the Support to Small Scale Irrigation Infrastructure for Accelerated Rural and Agricultural Development in selected states in Nigeria. We have already submitted the proposals to major financiers for funding. The aim is to address key aspects of agriculture and food security, including productivity enhancement, linkages to markets and project management in the agricultural sector.”
As regards the Fadama III project, he stated that the intervention would go a long way in supporting the government’s drive towards achieving self-sufficiency in food production for the country.
He said, “The World Bank implemented Fadama I and II Projects in Nigeria. The Fadama I Project focused basically on crop production through supplementary water supply, which resulted in conflict amongst common resource users.
“Fadama II Project was implemented to address the problems identified in Fadama I by involving all the stakeholders in the common resource utilisation and some downstream activities such as value addition and marketing.”
He also said, “But Fadama III is a follow up to the Fadama II, which is now implemented in 35 states and the Federal Capital Territory. The objective of the project is to increase the income of users of rural land and water resources on a sustainable basis. It will support the government’s strategic objective of increasing food security, reducing poverty; creating employment opportunities as well as improving the standard of living in the rural areas.
“The Fadama III Project has a national coverage intended to operate in 7,400 Fadama Community Associations in 560 local government areas out of 774 LGAs to be covered in 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory. The project will directly impact 2.2million households with an indirect impact on 16 million households.”
Though the Federal Government has said Nigeria will be self-sufficient in food production by 2017, there are still daunting challenges, Anna Okon writes.
There has been a renewed emphasis on local food production in recent times owing to the continued slip in oil prices globally and the resultant devaluation of the local currency.
All over the country, there has been a return to the agricultural sector which hitherto lay dormant while Nigeria savoured oil wealth. But with the oil almost trickling to a stop, the country has suddenly been roused to its former source of wealth; agriculture and food production.
A major foreign exchange earner in the 1960s and 1970s, the sector has featured in various development plans spanning 52 years, starting from the 1962-1968 development plan which was Nigeria’s first national plan and culminating in recent efforts of the President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration.
According to an economic analyst, Professor Sherifdeen Tella, the sudden drop in the price of crude oil was what Nigeria needed to jolt it back to the reality of the importance of agriculture. Tella had urged total dedication to the sector, saying that the government and people of Nigeria should not see the situation as a temporary one.
In the same vein, Bismark Rewane was optimistic that if there was commitment on the part of people and the government, it was possible for Nigeria to be self-reliant and comfortably support the economy with earnings from the non-oil sector.
Since June 2014 when the price of crude oil started falling from its peak of $115 per barrel, and continued its downward spiral, analysts have not ceased to call on the government and stakeholders to urgently consider diversifying the economy.
In a swift response to the situation, the Federal Government has, since last year, embarked on far-reaching agricultural programmes meant to boost local food production.
In October, the government approved the Nigeria Agricultural Transformation Agenda Support Programme which was proposed a year earlier.
Details of the plan published on the African Development Bank online portal, included a two-phased programme that consisted of an initial phase of three years to put in place, the delivery and institutional mechanisms through a learning by doing and piloting approach.
Other reforms have since followed the ATA in quick succession as the global oil benchmark keeps edging towards the $40 mark. From all indications, agriculture has become a central focus of the economy being the major foreign exchange earner apart from oil.
The Minister of Agriculture, Dr.Akinwumi Adesina, believes that things have been moving so fast in the sector that come 2017, the country will achieve self-sufficiency in food production.
Adesina said the success recorded in the cassava sub-sector was a strong indication that Nigeria was on its way to food self-sufficiency. He noted that the country had done extremely well in food production, adding that food import bill went down from 1.1trn in 2009 to N697bn by the end of December, 2013.
He told our correspondent, “Today, Nigeria is the largest producer of cassava in the world. The goal of the government is to make Nigeria the largest processor of cassava in the world. We are doing that in four ways; first, we are working to transform cassava into starch that can be used by industries.
“An American company which is the largest food processor in the world will be investing about $200bn in Alape, Kogi state for the establishment of 64,000 metric ton-starch plant and a 43,000 metric ton-sweetener plant. These two plants will transform cassava into starch and sweetener to replace the sugar that we are currently importing.”
The minister also said that the government was working with Coca Cola, Nigeria Breweries, Unilever as well as Flour Mills of Nigeria, to begin production of high quality cassava syrup that will be coming from the Alape plant.
Adesina also expressed support for the new rice policy of the Federal Government, describing it as another project that was sure to liberate the country from dependency on food importation. He was also optimistic that with the volume of rice being produced locally every year, the country would be able to export the commodity in three years.
The only problem with the policies, as laudable as they are, is that they are coming too late according to analysts, considering the fact that the general elections are in February and some of the policies have not been given legal backing to protect them from alteration or discontinuation by another government.
Last year, the Trade Commissioner and Managing Director, Japan External Trade Organisation, George Sato, told our correspondent that Nigeria had put in place good policies that had been attracting foreign investors to the nation.
He said, “All that the Japanese companies want is stability and consistency. After the 2015 elections, the current good policies should remain and continue. If there is sustainability and consistency, we will bring more Japanese businesses here.
According to the President, Rice Millers Association of Nigeria, Tunji Owoeye, if anything should happen to stop the rice policy, it would spell doom for Nigeria as a nation. Owoeye said stakeholders across the rice value chain had already made long-term investments and signed performance bonds running into billions of naira in the sector.
He told our correspondent in an interview, “If these projects and policies are not continued, it is going to spell disaster for Nigeria,”
Owoeye remarked that the only way to ensure continuity of the policies was to pass a legislation in the chambers to make it a national law. He added that another way of ensuring continuity would have been for the current administration to continue beyond February 2015.
An analyst and the Country Director, Harvest Plus, Mr. Paul Ilona, echoed Owoeye’s concerns. Ilona was of the opinion that with the current energy and dedication given to food production, the country was certain to be self-sufficient very soon.
According to him, the challenge will be in sustaining the current growth.
Another problem that has been providing a conduit for illegal importation is that local food production is still far from meeting the demand of Nigerians.