Prices of twenty-four commodities including rice, tomato, yam tuber and maize, declined marginally for two straight months to March 2019, on weaker purchasing power and natural factors.
For instance, the one dozen of medium-sized Agric eggs trended southwards from N469.8 in January to N459.8 in March. 1Kg of Brown Beans declined to N368.1 from N382.7
Also, 1Kg of fresh Catfish (Obokun) declined from N1073.5 to N1065.1, 1Kg of Irish potato fell from N290.6 to N278.9 and 1Kg of Onion bulb inched lower from N257.9 to N231.9.
Mogaji African Farmer, Consultant Farmer, X-ray Farms consulting agreed with the NBS data and attributed it to low demand from consumers and low food production.
“Prices are reducing but marginally and I guess that people are not buying because the purchasing power of people is dropping. One of the things I noticed during Easter was that prices of food items did not really go up,”
“There were fears of political unrest and crises as a result of elections that made farmers feel that they may not sell, and most microfinance banks did not give out loans to them because they did not want to take that risk. Every election year, there is always a decline in production and productivity,” Mogaji further said.
The country’s per capita income has been on a decline since 2014. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), per capita income data in Nigeria declined to $1,994 in 2017 from $3,268 in 2014.
“There has been a lot of investment in agriculture, in the Northern part of the country which has made a lot of irrigation systems to be revived so there is a lot of supply of food and it is coming down here. And also purchasing power has been weak, so people have not been able to buy as much and the wholesalers and retailers had to cut down their cost,” Abiodun Olorundenro, Operations Manger, Aquashoots Nigeria said.
Usually, the early planting season starts between early March and April. Farmers use that time to prepare their farm for the planting season
Emmanuel Ijewere, vice president of the Nigerian AgriBusiness Group (NABG) in his own opinion attributed it to the usual natural phenomenal
“The downward trend in prices that you are seeing is not unusual; it is created by natural phenomena. We are still benefitting from the harvest of last year but they will soon be dried up. I expect prices to start going up very soon let’s say around May-July,” Ijewere.
BUNMI BAILEY
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