The National Food Security Council led by President Muhammadu Buhari will meet to discuss the rising cost of food in the country, the government said.
The council was created in 2018 and is chaired by the president. Some state governors are members, along with the Ministers of Agriculture and Rural Development; Finance; Inside; Industry, Commerce and Investments; Water resources; Ambient; as well as Budget and National Planning.
The council was created primarily to respond to farmer-herder violence, climate change and desertification and its impact on farmland, TV channels reported at the time.
It also aims to address the problems of grazing areas and lakes, rivers and other bodies of water; oil spill and its impact on fishing communities in the Niger Delta; piracy and banditry; agricultural research institutions and extension services and the problem of smuggling.
It is unclear when the council last met, but it did have a meeting in September 2020.
Finance, Budget and National Planning Minister Zainab Ahmed said on Wednesday that the Federal Executive Council had decided that the council should “meet very quickly to address the issue of food inflation, and also provide a plan and some methods in that we can can reduce the cost of food to support the improvement of food prices for citizens”.
“Us [also] informed the council that inflation has begun to rise to the point that the monetary authority, the central bank, had to adjust the MPR to 13 percent in the last MPC, and that is an attempt to manage the cost of inflation,” he said. the minister.
The government move comes a week after the Central Bank of Nigeria raised interest rates from 11.5% to 13%. Analysts say Nigeria’s inflation is not due to too much money in the system but to a shortage of food and other items, suggesting that raising interest rates may not solve rising food prices. .
existing flagellum
The cost of food since the beginning of 2021 has increased steadily. Food prices reached the highest levels ever recorded in the country’s history last year, leaving millions of citizens struggling to buy food. The new steps appear to show that the government is finally taking real action against food inflation after years of downplaying the problem.
The government said it has invested substantially in agriculture, but its interventions have yet to deeply manifest in the country’s food security status. This is evident in the current state of food availability, affordability and accessibility in Nigeria.
In addition to several other factors affecting the country’s food production sector since 2021 after the Covid-19 lockdown, insecurity has spiked in many parts of the country, depriving farmers of access to their farms and driving up food prices. foods.
Economic growth
Ms. Ahmed said that FEC also decided to set up a special effort to look at economic sectors that did not grow well in the first quarter of 2022.
The Nigerian economy grew by 3.1% in the first quarter of 2022, compared to 0.5% growth in the first quarter of last year.
“This growth shows gradual economic stability since the recession we witnessed in 2020. And it also shows the six quarters of positive growth that the Nigerian economy has posted,” the finance minister said.
The minister said that of the 46 economic activities in the country, the performance of the bulk sector showed that the services sector grew strongly by 4.7 percent and that agriculture also grew by 3.61 percent.
He explained that the industrial sector for its part contracted by less than 6.81 percent and that there is also a significant contraction in the crude oil, oil and natural gas sector of 26.04 percent.
The Minister said that the coal mining sector also decreased and that the oil refinery had the largest contraction of 44.26 percent, followed by the electrical sector and textile production.
“So while there has been growth in some sectors, there are significant contractions than in others, but the net effect is positive growth,” he said.
Ms. Ahmed said that the government is well aware of the fact that “unless we have most of the growing sectors, especially growth in employment-affected sectors, people will not directly feel this positive growth.”
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