Nigeria may experience soaring food prices beyond this year unless urgent steps are taken to tackle insecurity and other factors impeding agriculture, stakeholders in the sector have warned. They identified poor farming activities and lack of access to credit facilities as other factors threatening food security in the country.

National President of the All-Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Kabir Ibrahim, stated that with the prevailing skyrocketing food crop prices, including soybeans, it will be costlier for the nation to feed itself without bumper harvests from the wet and dry seasons farming. He called on the federal and state governments to focus on real farmers in the implementation of their interventions in the sector.

The national president of Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN), Ezekiel Ibrahim, who echoed the AFAN president, said the poultry industry was at the verge of shutting down.

According to him, the small and medium-sized poultry farmers, believed to be major players in the industry, were closing shops, thereby threatening the millions of jobs created by the industry.

He said: “Since 2019, we have been saying let us import maize and soybeans to keep our agro industries floating.  This means we are maintaining employment rate. As at today, most factories and poultry farms have closed, the ones that are producing now are producing at a loss, if they continue, sooner or later, they are going to close down.

“This will increase protein deficiency and malnutrition in the nation. We have never had a worst experience as we are experiencing today. Many people can hardly afford anything in the market currently.” The Nation