The Nigerian government’s well-intentioned efforts to alleviate hunger among the citizens have created a new crisis, as frequent purchases of grains for distribution have led to the drastic decline of rice and other essential staples in the markets across the country.
LEADERSHIP Sunday’s investigation revealed that the current soaring prices of foodstuffs, especially rice and other grains, are due to the federal government’s bulk purchases of the products for distribution to vulnerable Nigerians.
Leaders of various farmers’ groups, grain producers, rice millers and processors as well as other stakeholders in the distribution chain said they have sold their stocks to the government at different times and had nothing to sell to middlemen.
In fact, the chairman of All Nigeria Farmers Association (AFAN) in Kwara State, Hon. Mahmud Aboki, told our correspondent that the rice pyramids, for example, that were common during the Muhammadu
Buhari administration and the early days of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu government no longer exist. He said they were purchased, processed and stored in national reserve centres across the country.
Aboki explained that the stored rice had been used for interventions under the government’s palliative scheme to cushion the effects of fuel subsidy removal on ordinary Nigerians.
He lamented that President Tinubu stopped the Anchor Borrowers’ Scheme initiated by his predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari.
Aboki said, “Consequently, those who couldn’t farm unless they were sponsored, who are many, are not able to farm, which leads to an aggravated food crisis.”
Responding to the soaring prices of foodstuffs, especially rice, where the 50kg bag sells for between N70,000 and N80,000 in the open market, the AFAN chairman said, “The current economic crisis has adversely affected farmers’ operations in many ways, including the high cost of land preparation, inputs such as herbicides, improved seeds, and labour.”
“The price of a bag of paddy rice ranges from N60,000 to N68,000, but the rice is not readily available due to decreased production capacity.
“The level of patronage is high; however, the demands could not be met due to the drastically reduced capacity of farmers to produce. Many of the affected farmers were the producers of the paddy rice used for the pyramids while the Anchor Borrowers were operational,” Aboki said.
But, the chairman of Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN) in Kwara State, Mallam Muhammed Salihu, claimed that rice production this year is higher than that of 2023.
He said farmers have mobilised to farms in their numbers to produce in large quantities to ensure food sufficiency in the state and the country in general.
He said the only challenge he faces is insufficient rainfall, lamenting that some plantations are drying up.
Salihu appealed to the government to assist farmers in the state with solar-pumping machines to encourage irrigation farming.
The state commissioner for agriculture and rural development, Mrs Toyosi Thomas, said the state government had commenced the distribution of farm inputs to 10,000 farmers to boost agriculture and ensure food security.
In Kebbi State, grain farmers and producers, especially rice farmers, admitted that the pyramids of rice and other assorted grains in various warehouses were no longer available because of the current harsh economic environment in which they operate.
They said a 50kg bag of rice now sells at N80,000 and N90,000, which has kept middlemen out of business.
One of the farmers who sought anonymity appealed to the state and the federal governments to expedite actions on the problems faced by food producers.
The commissioner of agriculture in the state, Abubakar Muazu, who reacted to the situation, said the present administration of Governor Nasir Idris had initiated agricultural programmes to address the problems associated with food shortage and inflation.
According to him, fertilisers were given free to the farmers, and loans and other inputs were provided under NG-CARES to selected farmers to boost food production.
The National Chairman of the Rice Millers Association of Nigeria (RIMAN), Mr. Peter Dama, said Anchor Borrowers was a very strategic programme designed by the President Mohammad Buhari administration to ensure that rice was adequately produced in the country so that we did not import the commodity.
According to him, Anchor Borrowers did not only end up on rice but also some other produce like maize, wheat, and many others. He said there were other products involved, but rice had prominent attention because it has become an international crop that is consumed by, say, 85% of the world’s population, including Nigeria.
Dama added that the emphasis is that because our population is growing, we need to stop importing that product if we will be self-sufficient. So, that is why the federal government came up with the Anchor Borrower program, which the CBN is supervising.
He explained that money was being channelled to farmers, and in return, they paid for their produce, adding that that is how we saw the rice pyramid in Nigeria. rice farmers returned to farms, so many emergency and political rice farmers came on board.
“We had political rice farmers, political rice millers who were carrying bags here and there and going to access this facility. That is notwithstanding the Associations, notably the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIMA), were the Chief Anchors of that project.
“We had a rice pyramid in Kebbi, Gombe, Ekiti, and here in Abuja. So a lot of capable millers were given. Our associations were called to submit a list of their millers, while men who could mill this rice paid for it, took the products to their mills, and were able to mill and take them to the market.”
Dama, who is also the National Chairman of the Board of Trustees Competitive, added that the African Rice Forum, which is made up of people in the Rice value chain, added that emergency rice farmers, millers, political rice farmers, and so on came in to hijack the project, but notwithstanding the project’s achievement of some level of self-sufficiency in terms of paddy rice production in this country.
“We had Paddy rice in our mills, and we were able to mill. This was what prevented the prices of rice from skyrocketing at that time.
The problem came as a result of the inability to get back the money being advanced to some of these farmers. When I say some of the farmers I’m talking about the political farmers, emergency farmers but not the real farmers themselves.
He argued that people who claimed to be farmers went ahead and collected the funds and couldn’t pay back, stressing that the organizers and project promoters were going round to get the loans refunded, but they couldn’t get adequate refunds of the money. Unfortunately, that in itself affected the production of rice in this country.
“This added to the question of insecurity in this country. The target had been farmers—farmers involved in all kinds of agricultural activities—but then rice millers were also targeted because they discovered that the CBN gave money, and you know bandits were going there to capture and kidnap them and ask for money. This has been happening in the country up until today, which again affected production.
He further opined that, unfortunately, with the coming of this administration, one of the first steps that the CBN took was to liberalise the importation of forty-one items. If you recall, forty-one goods were prohibited from import while they liberalised the borders and asked that these things come in with no restrictions.
According to him, in addition, the withdrawal of the fuel subsidy affected the entire economic and agricultural sectors because smallholder farmers needed farming inputs like water pumps, insecticides, and fertilizers to produce. However, the high cost of these things, based on the fuel subsidy withdrawal, affected these functions of farmers, and as such, things became very bad for the farmers.
He lamented that many rice mills are not producing at full capacity, and some have even closed down because they are electrically epileptic. They cannot continue to mill using diesel.
As a way forward, he said the government should go to these Anchor Borrowers with proper modifications, not even the CBN. They should recapitalise the Bank of Agriculture and allow the technocrats in agricultural business and production to handle the disbursement of these funds.
He added that the central bank should be left to handle its regulatory functions and monetary matters.
Still, these specialised banks, developmental banks like the Bank of Agriculture, which has been inactive for quite some time, should be recapitalised and given the funds to disburse to farmers because they know the real farmers and have their data.
