The Federal Government on Friday said food prices across the country have started dropping following emergency interventions ordered by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, stated this during an interview on Arise News’ Day Break, insisting that the President’s directives combining production support with short-term importation were already yielding results.
Kyari said: “There are tools if you want to take care of the structural imbalances in the agricultural sector. I have said it before—even the former President of the African Development Bank during his tenure, he also imported. There are tools to manage what you already have.”
He recalled that Tinubu inherited “huge structural defaults” when he assumed office in 2023, which forced the government to declare a state of emergency on food security.
“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu came at a time when there was huge structural default in terms of food security and that is why he had to declare the clarion call and emergency on food security in July 2023,” Kyari stated.
The minister explained that the intervention was designed to bridge gaps in local supply, citing rice as an example.
“Food availability, food security is a matter of entrepreneurial availability, supply and demand. In Nigeria so much availability and demand were not there. Rice, for example—we have about 15% gap in what we can supply and what we have in the country,” he said.
Kyari clarified that the temporary importation policy was a six-month window meant only to stabilise prices and would not discourage local farmers.
“The importation window was only for six months, and it has come and gone. When you look at the global demand field, it is not enough to make farmers discouraged with agricultural production,” he said.
He further disclosed that alongside imports, large-scale interventions were rolled out to support farmers.
He added: “For example, while that was going on, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu ordered the Central Bank to release 2 million bags of fertiliser to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture for onward delivery free of charge at zero cost, and that was done. We had so many programmes that supported farmers with fertiliser at 50%. So, there was a lot of production in 2024.”
