Nigerians continue to grapple with food inflation despite the promise by the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, that food prices would crash in 180 days.
In July 2024, Kyari raised hopes with the assurance that strategic measures would be put in place to address the high food prices nationwide.
According to him, some of the measures include the suspension of duties, tariffs, and taxes on food items such as maize, husked brown rice, wheat, and cowpeas.
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He also promised that the Federal Government would import 250,000 metric tonnes of wheat and 250,000 metric tonnes of maize to be supplied to small-scale processors and millers across the country.
To strengthen dry season farming and boost productivity, the minister assured Nigerians that the government would embark on aggressive agricultural mechanisation.
These measures, calculated to calm food inflation in 180 days gave Nigerians a sense of hope that by the first week of January 2024, the prices of essential staples would have crashed.
Food prices
Unfortunately, 180 days after the minister’s lofty promises and assurance, implementation of the measures is yet to be seen as food prices continue to soar.
As things stand, a 50kg bag of rice sold for N85,000 when Kyari unveiled the measures now sells for over N100,000.
Besides the agriculture minister’s yet-to-be fulfilled promises, the government had earlier highlighted other factors that hinder its efforts to control food inflation.
In his last Monetary Policy Committee meeting, Yemi Cardoso, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, identified “the rising cost of transporting farm produce; infrastructure-related constraints within the distribution network; security challenges in some food-producing areas; and the impact of exchange rate fluctuations on the prices of imported food items” as some of the factors that the efforts to control food inflation.
Meanwhile, as food inflation surged to 39.93% with Nigerians looking up to the government for immediate solutions, the Ministry of Agriculture has not offered any explanation as to why the measures it promised have not been implemented yet.
