In response to Nigeria’s recent food importation policy as a measure to crash prices of food commodities, the President of African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, has cautioned the Nigerian Government against reliance on food imports.
Adesina made the statement at the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa Primates and Wives’ Retreat, on Friday, in Abuja.
Speaking as a keynote speaker on the topic; ‘Food Security and Financial Sustainability in Africa: The Role of the Church’, recalled the great improvements he made on agriculture and food security and strong support he has rendered to Nigeria as President of African Development Bank, regretting that all those efforts have been dashed with the newly introduced food importation policy.
He said: “The African Development Bank significantly supports the Nigerian government on agriculture. The African Development Bank, together with the Islamic Development Bank and the International Fund for Agricultural Development, provided $614 million to support the establishment of Special Agricultural Processing Zones, which will allow private agribusinesses to establish industries to process and add value to agricultural commodities.
“The African Development Bank also provided $134 million to Nigeria for emergency food production to help drive down food price inflation, by boosting local production of wheat, rice, cassava, under the National Agricultural Growth Scheme.
“I was delighted that this support led to the cultivation of over 277,000 hectares of wheat in 2023/2024, an increase of 139% over the 115,000 hectares planted in the previous year.
“More was to follow, until a disheartening trumpet announcement a few days ago. Nigeria has now thrown its ports wide open for importing food, by removing all duties and levies on the import of maize, husked rice, milled rice and cowpeas.
“To use the parlance of scriptures “Oh, how the mighty have fallen!”. Tell it not on the streets, declare it not on the rural farms of Nigeria, for the farmers wail, and the private investors fall into despair. i feel today like the Prophet Jeremiah who said “I am bent over in pain. Oh, the torture in my heart! My heart is pounding inside me. I cannot keep quiet, because I have heard the trumpet.”
Recounting his scorecard as former Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture, Adesina said that he removed corruption from fertiliser distribution and introduced technology into the system which over 15 million farmers benefited from, leading to additional 20 million tons of food, adding that the impact brought 50-kilogram of rice to N3,750 against N60,000 it is currently sold.
“As Minister of agriculture in Nigeria from 2011-2015, I supported Nigerian rice farmers to access high yielding rice technologies. At the time, farmers were provided with access to farm inputs through electronic coupons on their mobile phones, a revolutionary approach, the first such to be done globally.
“The farmers responded with massive food production. Within four years, Nigeria witnessed a massive rice revolution and became self-sufficient in rice paddy production. At the time, we provided over 15 million farmers with agricultural technologies that allowed the country to produce over 20 million tons of additional food.
“The impact was felt in the general price of food. The price of a 50-kilogram bag rice at the time was N 3,750 compared to N60,000 today! Then, Nigeria became self-sufficient in paddy rice production.”
Further bemoaning the policy, the AfDB president said it cast a black day on Nigeria Agriculture as it has destroyed all the hard work done on Nigeria Agriculture. He added that policy inconsistency and politicisation will choke food security.
“As a former Minister of Agriculture, who with my team worked selflessly and
vigorously to build an agriculture sector that fed Nigerians and was globally acclaimed, the sound of the trumpet is a sound of mourning, sadly for Nigeria’s agriculture.
“This singular policy will literally destroy all the hard work done on Nigerian agriculture. It will set Nigeria back by several decades, turning the nation into the hands of importers, decimating the hard work of Nigerian farmers, obliterating the rural areas, and gutting out investors in the agricultural sector. It was a black day for Nigerian agriculture.
According to home, the lesson is clear: policy consistency is critical to assure food security and the frequent policy reversals and politicisation of food production has hurt Nigeria.
