The Nigerian Central Bank’s naira redesign policy, which was in effect from December 15, 2022, until early February of this year, when the Supreme Court overturned it, caused farmers to go bankrupt, according to the Federal Government on Monday.
Similar complaints were made by federal MPs, who stated that the rate of famine and starvation in the country were killing off rural impoverished people.
During the budget defense session held by Senator Abubakar Kyari, Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, before the National Assembly Joint Committee on Agriculture, grievances were raised regarding the impact of the contentious redesign of the naira and the hunger that results from insecurity.
The minister stated during his presentation before the joint committee, which was led by Senator Saliu Mustapha of the APC Kwara Centralthe minister said the focus of the 2024 budgetary proposals for the sector is to achieve food security in the country.
According to him, several factors like insecurity and the naira re-design policy carried out about a year ago, impoverished the farmers and severely threatened food security in the country.
“The cash crunch caused by the naira re-design made most of the farmers sold their farm produce at giveaway prices for survival since buyers couldn’t access cash to buy the produce from them.
“The policy which coincided with harvest season, ended rendering the farmers empty financially,” he said.
Dahiru Haruna from the Toro Federal Constituency in Bauchi State and Ademorin Kuye from the Shomolu Federal Constituency in Lagos State both made separate remarks during the session, emphasizing how urgent it is for the federal government to address the high rate of hunger in the nation, which is primarily due to insecurity.
“Minister, being from the North East, the picture I am about to paint shouldn’t be strange to you at all,” Haruna stated in his speech.
“The pathetic picture of people dying of hunger daily while majority of those surviving, feed once a day.
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“Making it worrisome is the fact that even people from neighbouring countries like Chad, Niger, Benin Republic and Central Aftrica, are trooping in to mop up the little food, signalling total famine in the area if not urgently addressed by stockpiling the silos “.
But Ademorin, in his remarks, wrote off the silos by putting it to the minister that most of the silos built by President Jonathan’s administration are alleged to be concessions for N20 million each.
The minister, however, in his response, assured the lawmakers that all issues raised would be decisively addressed in the 2024 fiscal year.
Kyari said food security is the number one out of the 8- 8-point agenda of President Bola Tinubu’s administration and that the ministry has repositioned itself for actualisation of the agenda.
According to him, some of the action plans already being implemented to ensure food security in the country aside from securing the farmlands by security agencies are “certification of available planting materials for some food security crops in readiness for dry season farming.
“Reviewing the mechanisms and processes for delivering fertilizers and agro-pesticides input to farmers under a transparent and accountable regime.
“Fast-tract the take off and operations of the National Agricultural Development fund.
“Implement a joint action plan with the Federal Ministry of Water Resources to unlock the huge irrigation potentials of the River Basin Development Authorities and other flood plains in the country to guarantee all-year-round food production etc.”
In his earlier report, he informed the committee that N124.1 billion of the N362.940 billion allocated for the sector for the 2024 fiscal year is for the Ministry.
According to his analysis, N12.6 billion of the N124.1 billion is allocated for human costs, N1.34 billion for overhead, and N112.497 billion for capital expenditures.
