Nigerians who have been agitating for a crash in the prices of staple food may have to endure for more time. Senator Abubakar Kyari, minister of Agriculture and Food Security said the target of the federal government is to have a series of policies and programmes put in place to yield fruits in six months time. Senator Kyari, who announced this on Wednesday, on his official X handle, said the series of strategic policies put in place to address food inflation will surely result in the crash of prices by December.
Obviously, by “strategic policies”, the minister was referring to efforts at creating a ministry of Livestock Development to compliment the kinetic approach to solving the issue of insecurity, and thereby free the farms for better operations; the various supports to farmers and sub-national governments as well as the suspension of excise duties on some imported food items.
The federal government had made efforts to support farmers so they would be able to operate farming in all seasons. But the challenge of insecurity and pests attacks affected the process, making much of the efforts go to waste. When those steps were taken last year, the assumption was that by the dawn of 2024 there would be abundant supply of food in the country. But that was not to be. So, by May this year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) put the food inflation at 40.66 percent .
This development led to the policy change by the government, which had sworn not to lift the ban on importation of food items. Kyari had announced on Monday that the government was granting to importers “a 150-day duty-free import window for food commodities as well as suspension of duties, tariffs, and taxes for the importation of certain food commodities through land and sea borders.”
