A lecturer at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Prof. Raphael Okigbo, has implored President Bola Tinubu-led administration to pay more attention to the agricultural sector to address the issue of food crisis in the country.
Okigbo, who’s a professor of Plant Pathology in the Faculty of Biological Sciences, made this call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Awka on Wednesday.
According to the Don, the scarcity and high price of food items had demanded a deliberate effort to address the challenges in the sector.
He asserted that insecurity and high cost of transportation are the bane of food security in Nigeria.
Okigbo then advised the federal government to open the country’s borders to importation of healthy food items in the short run to increase their availability and push down prices.
His words: “Again, the cost of moving produce from the farm to where they are needed has more than quadrupled; this is another harmful effect of removal of petrol subsidy.
“All this explains the scarcity of food items and their high prices where you find them.
“So, I want to say that the government should design a good and urgent policy to address the challenges in the agricultural sector.”