Nigeria is treading dangerously at the brinks of a hunger crisis in the event of any severe disruptions to the country’s agricultural system. With Nigeria currently having only about 30,000 metric tons of grains in the strategic grain reserves, out of a capacity of 1.3 million metric tons, the country is grossly unprepared for any national emergency.
“What they have is a small quantity that is meaningless,” notes an informed source who pleaded anonymity.
Divided by an estimated 100 million poor people (and not even the total population) would give a meagre 300 grams of a single type of grain, which would last only a few days. Whereas, the food reserves ought to sustain the entire country if productivity was to be halted to near zero for a complete season or even two seasons.
BusinessDay had reported Nigeria’s inclusion among 27 countries that are on the frontline of impending COVID-19-driven food crisis, in a joint report by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP).
At the beginning of the year, the assumption was that the country had about 100,000 metric tons before President Muhammadu Buhari granted approval to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to release 70,000 metric tons of grains from the National Strategic Food Reserve stock as palliatives following lockdowns occasioned by the coronavirus pandemic.
The grains to be released were from Minna Silo, Niger State – 10,000MTs of maize and 2,500MTs of gari; Lafia Silo, Nassarawa State- 5,000MTs of millet and 1,500MTs of gari; Dustin-Ma Silo, Katsina State – 12,500MTs of maize and 5,000MT of sorghum.
Others were Yola Silo, Adamawa State – 12,500MTs maize and 5,000MTs of sorghum; Gusau Silo, Zamfara State – 15,000MTs of sorghum, and Ilesha Silo, Osun State – 1,000MTs of gari.
Putting aside if the grains were disbursed and to whom, the country would be left with about 30,000 metric tons of grains, which the earlier unnamed source asserts is the current status.
Efforts to get confirmation from Sule Haruna, director of the Strategic Grains Reserves, were futile as he neither picked calls nor replied a text message sent to him.
“How do we restock the food reserve and put back more than what was there before?” asks Kabir Ibrahim, president, All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) in a phone interview. “That is very germane, because if we go by what is happening now with the insecurity in the North West and parts of the North East, where food is produced, there might be some shortage,” Ibrahim states.
If Nigeria is able to stock to full capacity, Ibrahim states, “It will be able to feed the country even if there are two consecutive seasons of no production.” However, putting just a few thousand like the 70,000 metric tons that should have been distributed recently is according to him, “like a drop in the ocean.”
This is not the first time in Nigeria that the Federal Government had to draw down its grain reserves. Earlier, 30,000MT was disbursed in response to food crisis at the various Internally Displaced Person (IDP) camps across the country, noted a PwC report in June on ‘Responding to the impact of COVID-19 on food security and agriculture in Nigeria.’
The report noted that in 2009 a total of 78,000MT was distributed out of the available 85,000MT. In 2011, purchases were ordered to replenish the stock while the remainder was distributed that year, leaving no grains in storage. The situation at present is even direr as 86.4 million people in Nigeria face moderate or severe food insecurity, according to this year’s State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, an annual flagship report jointly prepared by FAO, IFAD, UNICEF and WFP.
It also states that 36.8 percent of children under the age of five are experiencing stunted growth and 49.8 percent of women of reproductive age have anaemia.
In cost and affordability of nutrient adequate diet, this represented 34 percent of expenditure and cannot be afforded by 72.7 percent of the population. In cost and affordability of healthy diet, this constitutes 64.1 percent of expenditure and 91.1 percent of the population cannot afford it. As at 2019, the country had 24.6 million undernourished people while 17.8 million are severely food insecure.
By implication, the country cannot afford any worse condition in terms of food availability. The population of those who are food insecure would only worsen if there is an emergency and the country is unable to deploy food from its reserves.
“We have the privatised silos that are not storing any grains as of today,” remarks Ayodeji Balogun, CEO of AFEX in a Skype interview. “They have not been efficiently used almost going to two years since the privatisation has been concluded, worse than even when the ministry (of agriculture) used it.”
According to Balogun, the food reserves are used by other countries as a buffer for deficits, and to also mop up when there are excesses so as to stabilise the markets. In Nigeria today, this is currently lacking.
While Ibrahim suggests government should be ready to buy excess produce at the point of harvest, the problem in all of this is – the country is relatively broke and cannot afford to stock up the direly needed reserves – a dilemma, even in the midst of acute need.
