As a country with a growing population, the outbreak of Coronavirus (COVID-19) and the measures taken to control the spread of the virus would have a huge impact on food sufficiency. JULIANA AGBO examines the need to avert food crisis in Nigeria.
Before the outbreak of Coronavirus (COVID-19), Nigeria is considered food insecure due to increasing population, low food production, farmers/ herders’ crisis, insecurity and post-harvest losses.
With the growing cases of the virus in Nigeria, particularly in Lagos State and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, citizens have been panic buying food and basic supplies as they go into isolation in their homes. This could break the supply chain and cause more localised price hikes.
The Nation observed that the price of some basic food products had risen between 20 to 30 per cent. The situation will only get worse if the virus situation persists.
While the agricultural sector should be less affected than others, illness-related labour shortages, transport interruptions, quarantine measures limiting access to markets and supply chain disruptions resulting in food loss and waste could affect supply.
On the demand side, a loss of purchasing power caused by the virus could change people’s eating patterns, resulting in poorer nutrition.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has projected that Nigeria’s economy will recede by 3.4% in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic that has disrupted global supply chains.
This would be the worst recession in 30 years, and the second recession in five years, following closely after a negative economic growth of 1.51% in 2016.
However, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Governor, Godwin Emiefele, in a recent report titled, “Turning The COVID-19 Tragedy Into An Opportunity For A New Nigeria”, said in line with the vision of President Muhammadu Buhari, the apex bank has created several lending programmes and provided hundreds of billions to smallholder farmers and industrial processors in several key agricultural produce.
Emiefele said the policies are aimed at positioning Nigeria to become a self-sufficient food producer, creating millions of jobs, supplying key markets across the country and dampening the effects of exchange rate movements on local prices.
According to him, “For a country of over 200 million people, and projected to be about 450 million in a few decades, we can no longer ignore repeated warnings about the dangers that lie ahead if we do not begin to depend largely on what we produce locally.
“We must look inwards as a nation and guarantee food security, high quality and affordable healthcare, and cutting-edge education for our people,” he said.
Amid the control measures, the FAO and other relevant stakeholders have called for immediate actions to minimize disruption to food supply chains.
The organisation, in a statement issued by its director-general, QU Dongyu said coherent response is needed globally to prevent the outbreak of Coronavirus from triggering food crisis.
He noted that restriction of movement may impede farmers from farming, and food processors from processing, as well as a shortage of fertiliser Veterinary medicine and other farm inputs, could affect food production.
According to him, the COVID-19 outbreak, with all the accompanying closures and lockdowns, has created logistical bottlenecks that ricochet across the long value chains of the modern global economy.
“Restrictions of movement, as well as basic aversion behaviour by workers, may impede farmers from farming and food processors (who handle most agricultural products) from processing. Shortage of fertilisers, veterinary medicines and other input could also affect agricultural production.
Also, the recently released Cadre Harmonisé (CH) analysis have shown that food crisis is imminent in Nigeria if the country fails to maintain the current positive food and nutrition security trend and possibly improve on it.
The analysis carried out in Bauchi, Adamawa, Gombe, Taraba, Yobe, Borno, Kano, Jigawa, Kaduna, Katsina, Zamfara, Kebbi, Sokoto, Niger, Benue, Plateau and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, was introduced in Nigeria in 2015 with the maiden analysis done in October 2015 in eight (8) states.
Its process in Nigeria was jointly led and facilitated by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, in collaboration with Ministry of Health, National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Nigeria Metrological Agency (NIMET) among others and UN organisations, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP), among others.
According to the findings of the Cadre harmonisé analysis of March 2020, in the current period, over five million people in CH participating states of Nigeria are expected to be in the critical situation of food and nutrition insecurity or worse through March to May 2020.
However, if no humanitarian (food and livelihood) support is provided, these figures are projected to increase to about seven million people in the 16 northern states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), during the projected period (June to August 2020), which is traditionally known as the lean season in the country.
However, in response to the March 2020 CH analysis, stakeholders called for the implementation of sustainable agricultural and non-agricultural policies to increase income-generating activities that will impact positively on food consumption, livelihood and nutrition at the household level.
The stakeholders noted that to achieve this objective, there is a need to focus on addressing the militating factors to food and nutrition insecurity such as malnutrition, insecurity, conflict, poverty, inequality and constrained access to productive assets and decent employment.
Need for government intervention
Speaking on the intervention to cushion the effect of COVID -19 on the economy, the National Coordinator, Nigeria Farmers Group and Cooperative Society (NFGCS), Mr Retson Tedheke called on the federal government to increase investment in agriculture to create jobs and meet the targeted food security.
He said the lesson from COVID-19 is an investment in agriculture, adding that this is the best time to prioritize the sector.
Tedheke reiterated the need to invest in pieces of machinery, infrastructure, agro-processing, research, and in every sector of the economy that is capable of supporting a massive revolution in agriculture.
According to him, “Government should make loans cheaper for farmers, make the environment more conducive. Most of the challenges need to be solved so that we can maximise the potential available in the agriculture sector.
“Once there is enabling environment and the drive is there, the farmers will be able to go to the farm. We must also invest in the technology of agriculture so that farmers can enhance productivity.
“The farmers need seeds to plant right now, it also the time to support fertiliser blending so that the subsidy of fertiliser should be reduced to encourage farmers.
Similarly, the Co-founder, Kia Kia Bits Limited, Mr. Olajide Abiola, said the government need to be radical and proactive to eliminate some of the unusual bureaucracies that are often put in place to access credit and also give farmers, food producers and logistics operators.
“We expect the government to be creative and innovative at this period in reaching the hinterlands, finance, fintech companies, operators and Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), especially those within the agricultural space.
“The raining season farming is already approaching, a lot of farm inputs are going to be needed, because as an operator within the financial industry and the agricultural sector, I know that while some of the efforts of government so far are commendable, I will say it is not effective enough, especially in the area of execution and delivery.”
Utilising natural resources
According to Tedheke, “We have not been able to utilise what we have as a country, a nation that imports what they are capable of producing can never grow.
“Imagine if all of those food we use about $10 billion to import yearly is produced in Nigeria. Imagine the agricultural sector that has the highest employer of labour in the world was pulling five million Nigerians out of the labour market every year for the next 20 years.
Every nation must develop and focus on what they have, Nigeria has land in abundance, at a moment like this, we must go back to our drawing board and reinforce our capacity to become even more productive.
“It is better for us to eat stones from what we produce so we can make the process better. Once you begin to invest massively in agriculture, you begin to industrialise.
Speaking on the release of 70,000 tons of grains being given to Nigerians, he said the government should provide a conducive environment for farmers to refill the grain reserves.
Furthermore, Abiola said the crash in the international oil crash alone has threatened the revenue profile of the country, adding that it will depict the country’s foreign exchange account.
He said Kia-Kia Bits as a licensed lender empowered to lend will continue to empower more farmers, so as achieve self-sufficiency.
He said, “For us at the private sector, immediately we anticipated the turbulence in the economy as regards to the oil price, one of the things we did was to review our internal policy and start directing our credits to those who are in the food logistics and local productions and sectors.
“As a result of that, we were able to increase our credit portfolio, food production and logistics as much as 85%. We also extended our moratorium of the loans we issued, many that were due for repayment in April.
“As the challenge of food security looms, it provides an opportunity for the government to carry out and target economic and financial stimulus intervention. By the time we beat this pandemic into retreat, but do not have food security in place, it is going to be a bigger problem than the pandemic itself.
Challenges
Speaking further on government intervention, a farmer based in Keffi, Eshioramhe Gabriel reiterated the need for critical MSMEs across the country, to curtail the challenges in the agriculture sector.
“We need to act fast by going into massive farming because anything that affects the economy, will affect the productivity of farmers nationally and globally. This will also affect the availability of food.
“Farmers need constant training and support to produce more food,” he said.
Speaking on the challenges affecting farmers due to measures against COVID-19, the Farm Manager, NFGCS, Mr Peter Ogbeide said a lot of farmers are finding it difficult to access their farms due to lockdown.
Ogbeide who called on the government to exempt farmers from the lockdown, said most farmers have lost millions to their farms due to the challenges faced daily.
“We did not expect to meet these challenges since we are into food production. Just last week, we lost hundreds of birds due to unbearable security holdups. A journey of not more than 30 minutes’ drive from Abuja to Keffi after driving from Ibadan, took two hours due to multi holdup caused by security personnel. We received a total of 1000 Turkeys and 1000 Broilers, but we lost hundreds and still counting.
“This is a total loss for us. We can’t produce our birds, yet we are not relying on government support us to diversify the economy.
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