Averting food crisis with speedy passage of bill

Following threat to food security in the country in the aftermath of COVID-19 crisis and other agricultural challenges, agric stakeholders have urged the National Assembly (NASS) to urgently adjudicate right to food as a fundamental human right in the country’s constitution to guarantee food availability. TAIWO HASSAN reports

The emergence of COVID- 19 exposed the level of preparedness of many nations to shocks and also gave insight into the wisdom in promoting self-sufficiency and averting food crisis. However, for Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari admitted that the country was lucky not to have experienced food shortage during the outbreak of the pandemic early this year, thereby putting the success on his administration’s targeted agric policies that favour investments in the agricultural sector. Indeed, Buhari commended Nigerian farmers for contributing to stability in food security in the country, saying “I am pleased to note that most Nigerians are taking advantage of the opportunities in the agriculture and agric-business sector. I want to assure you that this government will continue to support these initiatives and many more to come.’’ No doubt, kudos should be giving to the present administration to have had plans to embark on aggressive agric inclusion development when it came to power in 2015 when there was crisis in oil price at the international market.

Soaring food prices

President Buhari had also expressed the concern of his administration about the sudden increase in food prices at a time the economy was already mired in coronavirus outbreak. While downplaying the reports of looming food crisis in the country, the Federal Government attributed the continuous rise in food prices to bulk purchases by organisations as COVID-19 palliatives. Vice President of the National Food Security Council and Governor Kebbi State, Atiku Bagudu, revealed this after the council’s meeting at the Presidential Villa.

He said the spiraling cost of food was as a result of the speedy response to cushion the effects of the pandemic. “The CACOVID was buying food items for the coronavirus pandemic response in bulk at a peak of the beginning of the season, at a time when demands are not high. So, it contributed to the high cost. “The global lockdown also contributed because of the lack of movement of food items. But now, harvests are coming in and it is good.” In its response, All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) warned that the skyrocketing food prices in the country could cause crisis and threat to food security post-COVID-19 if not properly addressed. The National President of AFAN, Arc Kabir Ibrahim, in an interview with New Telegraph, emphatically stated that the country would still experience food shortage in her agriculture space due to challenges facing food security in the country. He attributes the challenges to the pandemic, insecurity, flooding, drought in some areas, inadequate technology, power, lack of quality seeds and veritable inputs, saying these were already debilitating impediments to the up-scaling of productivity in the country’s agric sector currently without no solution in sight. Ibrahim explained that the soaring price of food items currently being experienced was a risk factor in the attainment of the desired food security in the country, saying that for there to be real food security anywhere in the world, a number of factors have to be in place.

Food bill speedy passage

However, amid the danger looming in the country’s food sector, agric expert suggested the need for the National Assembly to rise up to the occasion to make the right to food a fundamental human right in the constitution. An agronomist, Gbolagade Ayoola, a retired Professor of Agricultural Economics and Policy and President, Food and Infrastructure Foundation (FIF) had petitioned the National Assembly in this regard. The President of the Food and Infrastructure Foundation made this disclosure in a memorandum in which he addressed to the Deputy Senate President/Chairman, Senate Ad hoc Committee on the Review of 1999 Constitution, National Assembly, Abuja, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, entitled: ‘The Need to Make the Right to Food a Fundamental Human Right in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.’ He urged the Senate committee to speed up the passage of the right to food bill currently pending before the Senate (SB Bill 240) in order to protect agriculture and guaranteeing food security in the country. According to him, the food bill requires amending the constitution in Chapter 2 (Directive Principles of State Policy, wherein not justiciable), and in Chapter 4 (Fundamental Human rights, wherein justiciable). Speaking on fast tracking the movement of the food security provision from chapter two to chapter four, the agric expert advocated that citizens better engage the government over failure to make food available and affordable by not providing the requisites such as irrigation facilities, rural road networks, market and other rural infrastructure, thereby influencing policy authorities to create an enabling environment and the productivity and security of the farm population (crop and livestock farmers alike); these being the responsibility of the government and connected to food production and availability in all parts of the country.

Implementation strategy review

In addition, he said his group wanted President Muhammadu Buhari be mandated to produce and review on yearly basis an implementation strategy as a schedule to the food bill, and to deliver an annual food situation address to the National Assembly in accountability for the huge resources appropriated for the purpose, and in recognition of food security as the bedrock of national security. He said the bill was geared towards improvement of policy environment for food security and agribusiness in terms of policy responsibility, accountability, transparency and due process on the part of the government. Ayoola made a case by arguing that entrenching such in the constitution would engender food sovereignty and self-sufficiency, thereby freeing the country from the clutches of neo-colonialism through food trade and make the people feel an implicit gratification for their ability to feed themselves. He said: “That right to food bill will stimulate incremental food output through the supply response of farmers in the bid to meet the new demand pressures from the general populace, thereby improving incomes, livelihoods, and employment in rural Nigeria.”

Last line

Amid the uncertainty surrounding food availability following the soaring cost of food items and in order to avert food crisis, there is need for the National Assembly to speedily pass the food bill for Nigerians.