Farmers shun wet season farming, cause food inflation -FG

The Federal Government, on Tuesday, said farmers were heavily impacted by floods in the past farming season, hence they opted not to farm during this 2023 wet season.

The situation, it said, contributed to food inflation in the country.

The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, disclosed this I a statement by his issued by his ministry.

“In order to mitigate their losses, they opted not to farm during this 2023 wet season which contributed to food inflation.

“This was compounded earlier in the year by the naira redesign policy which came into full force during the harvest season earlier this year,” the agric ministry stated in the statement.

The minister added that the Federal Government is working towards reforming the Bank of Agriculture, National Agriculture Development Fund, and Nigeria Agriculture Insurance Corporation to deal with farmers’ access to credit.

He stated that in order to mitigate the problem of access to finance, the government was also subsidising farm inputs to farmers, while the process of reforming the three institutions was underway.

Market intelligence, according to the minister, indicated that farmers sold their produce at give-away prices.

This, he said, explained why the Federal Government opted to subsidise inputs for farmers in the 2023 dry season farming by taking advantage of an African Development Bank facility.

Kyari called for the local cultivation of wheat since there was high demand for the commodity in the production of confectionery, adding that it would boost food security and improve the economic fortunes of farmers.

The minister said the Federal Government was providing free wheat seeds to farmers, while fertilisers were subsidised at 50 per cent to enable farmers to have access to commodities.

He stated that with the declaration of emergency on food security by President Bola Tinubu, the focus of the agric ministry was on how to increase yield using the available land for both dry and wet season farming.

He said the ministry was also deploying technology to harvest flood water for dry-season farming, but expressed concern over the lack of data on farmers and farms in Nigeria.

Kyari pointed out that such data would help in monitoring the activities of farmers, stressing that the ministry was working with state governments to provide the data to further help monitor the activities of farmers.