Assailed by dependence on high-priced food imports amid scarce forex resources, rising inflation and a burgeoning population, Nigeria’s food insecurity is being aggravated by acute post-harvest losses, which the Federal Government estimates at $12 billion annually. For a country labelled as the poverty capital of the world, this adds an extremely staggering burden to Nigeria’s predicament. Achieving the government’s goal of snapping the losses in half will test the country’s broken structure to the limits.
For years, Nigeria has found it tough to feed its populace because of dwindling food produce, herdsmen attacks on smallholding farmers and the decade-old Boko Haram insurgency. According to the 2019 Global Hunger Index, Nigeria’s case is progressing from a “serious to alarming level” as it scored 29.2 per cent, placing 98 out of 107 countries assessed. It means Nigeria fares better than only nine countries.
The hunger reality is stark. It has been compounded by the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in which economic activities were locked down for about five months. Currently, the prices of basic food items have hit the roof, and coupled with high fuel prices after the Federal Government’s policy to deregulate the energy market without local refining, pushed headline inflation to 14.89 per cent.
Take tomato, a national staple. Nigeria is Africa’s second largest producer with nearly 2.3 million tonnes annually. That makes the country the 14th largest tomato producer globally, says PwC, but between 40 and 60 per cent of the crop rots away before reaching the market. A 2019 report by the Raw Materials Research and Development Council stated that Nigeria’s annual consumption is 2.4 million tonnes. To augment the deficit, Nigeria has become the 13th largest importer of tomato products, including canned tomato paste, tomato ketchup and various sauces and canned tomato fruit estimated at $360 million annually. That is a huge haemorrhage of forex.
In essence, Nigeria is highly food insecure, as the losses are replicated in fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains and fish, among others. The Global Food Security Index compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked Nigeria a lowly 94 out of 113 countries in 2019 with an overall score of 48.4 per cent, a mere 0.7 per cent upgrade from the 2018 score of 47.7 per cent. In contrast, the study puts Singapore, Ireland and the United States as the first three most secure food nations in 2019, scoring 87.4, 84.0 and 83.7 per cent respectively.
Apart from ignorance on crop management by farmers and insecurity, central to the post-harvest losses is the poor rural road infrastructure, extortion of motorists transporting farm produce to the urban centres by the security agents, a virtually non-existent cold storage system for perishables and a moribund rail system. In this, state governments are liable for neglecting the rural roads in their domains, thereby contributing significantly to the waste being experienced, particularly during the rainy season.
Agriculture is very important to Nigeria, though the government toys with it. The sector contributed 24.6 per cent of the GDP in the second quarter of 2020, says the National Bureau of Statistics. If the current trend of post-harvest losses persists, Nigeria, with an annual population growth rate of 2.58 per cent, faces imminent peril. A report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation states that around 1.3 billion metric tonnes of food, which is 33 per cent of the total produce, is lost in the post-harvest stage globally; it predicts that if the current practices continue, the loss would be around 2.1 billion metric tonnes in 10 years’ time.
Fairly, the incumbent regime is making efforts to reverse the losses. For this, it has commenced the Secured Agricultural Transport and Storage Corridor Policy. A worthwhile undertaking, it aims at reducing post-harvest losses in half or increasing the contribution of agriculture to GDP by five per cent. To make the SATS-C efficient is a different story. Currently, the synergy between the federal, state and local governments, the research institutions and stakeholders seems to be undefined. By hindsight, that multi-level synergy helped India to cut waste in milk production significantly. Through a project initiated by the Amul Cooperative in Gujarat in 1970 and replicated in all states by the government, India has reduced its losses in the milk and dairy sector significantly. Indeed, of the 7,600 cold storage stores in four states there, 96 per cent are managed by the private sector. Therefore, the government at all levels in Nigeria should broaden the scope of the private sector in this aspect of cultivating large-holding farms, harvesting, managing and storing crops.
Without drivable rural roads, all the efforts are likely to flounder. The 36 states should make this a top-level priority and provide basic amenities like schools, cottage hospitals and rural electrification to reduce the rural-urban migration. Cooperatives should be developed to assist farmers in securing favourable facilities to build storage facilities and sell their produce at good prices.
Currently, the level of insecurity is just too high. The Federal Government should reverse this, including collaborating with the parliament on how to devolve policing. As well, the Railway Act 1955 ensnares transport. To make for efficient railway transport, the Act should be repealed and replaced with a new law that will liberalise the sector. Electricity, which is critical in the sustenance of cold storage facilities, needs to be improved upon.
