Emefiele’s naira redesign policy caused farmers losses – Agric minister

The Federal Government, on Monday, said the naira redesign policy of the previous administration ran farmers bankrupt.

The naira redesign issue came up at the National Assembly when the  Minister of  Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, appeared for the defence of his ministry’s budget.

In his presentation before the joint committee chaired by Senator Saliu Mustapha, the agriculture minister said the focus of the 2024 budgetary proposals for the sector was to achieve food security in the country.

He said several factors, including insecurity and the naira redesign policy, carried out about a year ago by former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, impoverished the farmers and severely threatened food security in the country.

Kyari said, “The cash crunch caused by the naira redesign made most of the farmers sell 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 the harvest season, ended up rendering the farmers empty financially.”

In their separate remarks at the session, the lawmaker representing Toro Federal Constituency in Bauchi State, Dahiru Haruna; and the lawmaker for  Shomolu Federal Constituency of Lagos State, Ademorin Kuye, said there was an urgent need for the Federal Government to address the high rate of hunger in the country largely caused by insecurity.

Haruna said, “Honourable minister, being from the North-East, the picture I am about to paint shouldn’t be strange to you at all. The pathetic picture of people dying of hunger on a daily basis while the majority of those surviving feed once a day calls for concern.

“Making it worrisome is the fact that even people from neighbouring countries like Chad, Niger, Benin Republic and Central Africa are trooping in to mop up the little food, signaling total famine in the area if not urgently addressed by stockpiling the silos.”

But Ademorin expressed doubt about the idea of stocking silos, saying most of the silos built by the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan did not achieve the intended result.

However, the minister, in his response, assured the lawmakers that all the issues raised were being addressed and would be decisively addressed in the 2024 fiscal year.

Kyari said food security was the number one on President Bola Tinubu’s eight-point agenda, adding that the agric ministry had been repositioned for the actualisation of the agenda.

He listed some of the steps already being taken to ensure food security to include “certification of available planting materials 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-tracking the take-off and operations of the National Agricultural Development fund,” among others.

He said the Federal Ministry of Water Resources was also working 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.

Earlier in his submission, Kyari told the committee that for the 2024 fiscal year, a total of N362.940bn was earmarked for the agric sector out of which N124.1bn was for the ministry.