Urgent action needed to address food inflation

By Elvis Eromosele

“An old woman is always uneasy when dry bones are mentioned in a proverb.” This is a popular saying from Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart.” Many times these days, I feel like that old woman in the saying, especially when I see skits where food is wasted, and there are too many of them now. I don’t find them funny. I can’t laugh. They offend my sensibility. Food doesn’t cost.

This rising cost of food is called food inflation. Food inflation refers to the rate at which food prices increase over a specific period, typically measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for food. This metric indicates how much the cost of a standard basket of food items has risen, impacting consumers’ purchasing power and overall cost of living.

According to the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, “In April 2024, the food inflation rate reached 40.53 percent on a year-on-year basis, marking a substantial increase of 15.92 percentage points from the 24.61 percent recorded in April 2023.”

People across the length and breadth of the country have adopted (and are adopting) various strategies to cope with soaring food prices. It’s a picture that should worry anyone with a conscience.

A simple scan of households reveals that many families are shifting from more expensive food items to cheaper, less nutritious alternatives. This often means reducing protein intake and relying more on carbohydrates. This is inadvertently compounding the nation’s protein deficiency woes.

Reports indicate that some households are reducing the number of meals they consume daily. Instead of three meals, many now eat just once or twice a day. Take a closer look at your driver, security guards, and other domestic staff today; do their necks appear thinner?

Fortunately, community support appears to be on the rise. This refers to informal community networks that play a crucial role in augmenting family meals. It can be neighbours or extended families sharing food and resources to provide a buffer against acute shortages.

There is an increased reliance on street food. Street food vendors, offering relatively affordable meals, have become an essential part of daily sustenance for many urban poor. They are a good reason why many people are surviving. They provide a life-giving service.

Many people have equally resorted to the time-honoured pattern of borrowing money or buying food on credit from local vendors. While this ensures people can live to fight another day, it also perpetuates the cycle of debt.

It is time to mitigate the adverse effects of food inflation. The government, the major driver of inflation through its policies, must now take several urgent measures to help curb it and provide immediate and long-term relief to Nigerians.

Let me start with my favourite theme: the government must provide food subsidies. I believe that implementing subsidies for essential food items and controlling prices can help make basic foods more affordable. Subsidies on fertilisers and seeds can also reduce production costs for farmers.