The Nigerian Agribusiness Group (NABG), has listed some steps Nigeria should consider if it truly wants to achieve food security and food sovereignty.
The group in a document signed by its President, Arc. Kabir Ibrahim, said the cry about insecurity and high input prices by the Nigerian small holder farmers (SHFs) and small scale producers (SSPs) call for decisive action by government and the organized private sector to avoid imminent severe stresses in the food system in 2026 and beyond.
The group said it is true that the Nigerian consumers are now a lot happier with food prices today, but it should be clearly noted that the producers are groaning due to insecurity preventing them from seamlessly accessing their farms and the ever rising costs of inputs like fertilizers and other agro-chemicals that they use for production.
According to the document, “Fair price is the soul of Agribusiness because rapid return on investment (ROI) is sine qua non to sustainability!
“The SSFs will need to sell their surplus produce to be able to buy the inputs they need for the next cycle of production but whereupon that becomes next to impossible it portends serious challenges in the entire food system.”
The group said a good model to safe-guard this from happening is to calibrate cost of production on a global basis, that is, ensure security of investment in all its ramifications.
“All government institutions ought to work properly for this to happen and that’s where we need to reappraise the way we treat agriculture in this country”, they said.
“We should initiate a mechanism to make the government the buyer of last resort by resuscitating the guaranteed minimum price (GMP) and thereby buying off excess produce directly from farmers and reselling the same to consumers when inflation rears its head.
“Extreme care should be taken, though, in this intervention to avoid creating middlemen and rent seekers that will make a mockery of the exercise.
“We must ensure consumer protection by analysing the economics of production (EOP) of regional staples and make scientific assessments to calibrate retail prices so as to create price stability and sanity in our markets. This is by no means a call for price control but simply consumer protection.
“To make food distribution seamless, we must lower the cost of transportation by creating special vehicles and abolishing unnecessary road blocks and multiple taxation along food distribution corridors.
“To ensure maximum value proposition for all investment in the Agriculture ecosystem, we must create an enabling environment for sustainable value addition through tax holidays and energy rebates as well as processing equipment support systems and long term credit and low interest loan advances to genuine enterprises.”
The group listed other steps to include, promoting inclusive-business-support systems by ensuring that businesses create or evolve a critical mass of loyal outgrowers and that they also readily offtake and as well grant these outgrowers incentives such as equities in the “value-add” programme, consolidate commercial and investment partnerships (CIPs) among veritable agricultural stakeholders such that guarantees are given to efforts and investments sprouting from collaborations and partnerships; regulatory institutions saddled with the provision of energy must be streamlined to work solely for the national interest in the deployment of alternative energy to all Agricultural businesses or entrepreneurial efforts; the effort currently aimed at ensuring security in the entire nation should be reinvigorated to involve traditional institutions and all high networth individuals in the various communities as they are all beneficiaries of a genuinely secured environment; the CBN’s work of strengthening the Nigerian Naira should be given maximum attention to enable the citizens to get direct benefit for working hard to earn an income in a very challenging environment; the fight against corruption from all facets of Nigerian life should be scaled to a position of self preservation by having zero tolerance for it, and the real stakeholders in Agriculture with veritable investments, who are not necessarily deriving the requisite benefit from all government interventions, through the institutions meant for such, should be carried along.
“Unfortunately a good number of the farmer and commodity associations are dysfunctional and some of them are out-right frauds”, the group said, adding that a government backed dispassionate exercise in partner institution viability assessment (PIVA) will reveal that some of them should be actually abrogated.
“We can add flesh to all the 11 bullets above as a policy frame-work for National implementation given the necessary impetus by the National government.
“This is the US experience, for example, and that’s why there is sustainable food security and low insecurity there!”