Nigerian Senate has called on the Federal Government to introduce food stamps programme as a measure to cushion the effect of hunger and food crisis in the country. The red chamber also urged the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security to liaise with development partners and other relevant stakeholders, especially the Lagos Food Bank Initiative, which introduced Temporary Food Assistance Programme, a few years ago.
Food stamp is a supplemental nutrition assistance programme that provides food-purchasing assistance for low- and no-income people to help them maintain adequate nutrition and health. This involves the issuance of vouchers cheaply to people captured by the programme to enable them to exchange same for food. Apart from the programme giving advantage to the vulnerable to get access to food items, it also ensures that they will not be disadvantage in nutritional care.
Senator Ali Ndume, Senate Chief Whip, (APC, Borno South) and Senator Saliu Mustapha (APC, Kwara Central) sponsored the bill, which was supported by majority of their colleagues during plenary.
Ndume, at the unveiling of the October 2023 Cadre Harmonisé Analysis on food insecurity, said it was projected that in 2024, Nigeria is expected to see about 26.5 million people, grappling with high level of food insecurity.
The reason for the above projection is not far-fetched, as several indicators, which include but not limited to the ongoing conflicts across the country, climate change impacts, escalating inflation as witnessed in recent time, and rising costs of both food and essential non-food commodities, due to fall in value of Naira in exchange market.
