Expert faults Nigerian govt’s plans to open food reserves in February

Kola Masha, the Chief Executive Officer CEO of Babban Gona, an organization that provides support for smallholder farmers in Nigeria has faulted the plans by the Federal Government of Nigeria to open the nation’s grain reserves in the face of rising cost of living.

Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris had earlier disclosed that plans were underway to release food items from the National Food Reserves to address this rising cost of living.

Reacting to this, Masha while appearing on a programme on CNBC Africa on Thursday faulted this plan by the federal government describing it as slightly misguided.

He stressed that July or August was a more strategic time frame when food inflation may have reached its peak while noting that the government’s efforts should be concentrated on increasing farmers’ yields by 50 percent.

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“Well, I think, to be frank, releasing your strategic grain reserves in February may be slightly misguided. The reality is that food inflation only goes up from August. Harvest was just around December, wrapped up in some areas in January.

“So, the reality is food prices are going to continue to go up until the next harvest. I think there has been some talk around the role of dry season farming. Dry season farming can play a mitigating role, but the reality is that 97 plus percent of farming in Nigeria is done during the rainy season. And so, what we’re going to see coming in during the dry season may offset some food inflation to some degree.

But the reality is that we’re going to see very strong prices continue to go up until September when we start seeing the new crop from the 2024 rainy season come in.

And so, the reality is if the government really wants to play a role, they should be releasing their grain reserves more in the July, August time frame when we are expecting those really peak prices” he said.

By Babajide Okeowo

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