SIR: All the processes/stages associated with getting food onto the table for final consumption are becoming increasingly costly; from the time the food crop is planted to when it is finally cooked and served for consumption. Time was, in the good old days, when it was said that a bottle of soft drink was cheaper than fuel. Not any more as the retail cost of carbonated soft drinks is catching up with that of fuel. What is more, the proposed government tax on beverages will further escalate their prices, thereby pushing them further off the food table of many more Nigerians. Most Nigerians now make do with water or local drinks like kunu, zobo. Though not left out from the pervasive price increases, sellers of these indigenous brews have found a rather clever way round it by maintaining their price list while reducing the quantity.
Should you decide to buy yams from the market, you will find that a tuber is about treble its former price now. This is because of the various cost layers in bringing them to the market place. Those whose primary occupation is farming especially in the food basket zone of northern Nigeria say there is lesser land available for cultivation because of a variety of reasons chief among which are reoccurring farmers/herders conflicts, menace of bandits, unknown gunmen, terrorists that prowl our hinterlands. Thus, there is relatively lesser land to be cultivated. Even for what is cultivable, farmers say cost of fertilizers and other inputs are increasing every farming season, all of which add to the cost of food crops. Not everything planted is harvested because some are lost to small time thieves that roam farmlands due to high poverty levels.
Then there is rising transportation cost, to bring the harvested yam/other food crops to the market place. Transporters say the hike in fuel prices coupled with poor state of Nigerian roads generally has forced them to hike their own haulage fares accordingly. That is not end of the story. Once they are offloaded in the market, the seller has to pay to ostensibly local government officials, daily or on market days, for the open space used to display his/her farm produce. That fee has more than doubled now.
The end result of all of the aforementioned is that a tuber of yam goes for an average of N500 in northern Nigeria and no less than about N1000 in southern Nigeria.
A bag of sachet water has risen by 100 per cent, from N100 to N200. Suppose you buy from water vendors, a 25 litre keg of water has been raised from N10 to N25 because the vendors say the borehole owners from whom they buy the water to sell have jerked the wholesale price due to concomitant hike in cost of diesel/petrol needed for pumping water, adding that even when they use public electricity for pumping it is also costly because the electricity distribution company has increased its tariff.
Gas price has shot up astronomically; where you formerly used a little less than N5000 to fill your gas cylinder, you now spend N10,000. Should you consider the electric stove, you will discover that the discos have in the last few months raised their rates astronomically too.
Charcoal and wood are no better alternatives as such. Their prices have also jumped up and you have to factor in the stress/hazards associated with them. More regrettable is that the price of everything mentioned here keeps rising every week. Is it any wonder that most people can no longer afford three square meals but skip at least one of them, to adjust to the cost of getting food to the table for consumption?
- Victoria Ngozi Ikeano,
Lafia, Nasarawa State.