FG to set up commodity board to regulate food prices

The federal government says it plans to set up a commodity board to regulate the soaring prices of food in the country.

Vice President Kashim Shettima disclosed this on Tuesday at a two-day high-level strategic meeting on climate change, food systems and resource mobilisation held in Abuja.

His statement comes after the federal high court in Lagos ordered the federal government on February 7, 2024, to fix the prices of goods and petroleum products within seven days.

According to Shettima, the board would be given the mandate to assess and regulate food prices, as well as maintain a strategic food reserve for stabilising prices of crucial grains and other food items.

He said food security was one of the eight areas of priority declared by President Bola Tinubu as part of his Renewed Hope Agenda.

“Our solution to the potential food crisis has become immediate, medium, and long-term strategies,” he said.

“The short-term strategy entails revitalising food supply through specific interventions like the distribution of fertilizers and grains to farmers and households to cushion the effects of subsidy removal.

“It also entails fostering collaboration between the ministries of agriculture and water resources for efficient farmland irrigation, ensuring year-round food production; and addressing price volatility by establishing a national commodity board.

“This board will continually assess and regulate food prices, maintaining a strategic food reserve for stabilizing prices of crucial grains and other food items.”

The vice president said Tinubu’s administration was fully investing in the restoration of degraded land.

According to him, there are ongoing plans to restore four million hectares, or nearly 10 million acres of degraded lands within the nation’s borders as its contribution to the AFR100 Initiative.

“I wish to assure you that we will engage our security architecture to protect the farms and the farmers so that farmers can return to the farmlands without fear of attacks,” he said.

“We won’t only make it safe for farmers to return to their farms, but we will also ensure the activation of land banks.

“There is currently 500,000 hectares of already mapped land that will be used to increase the availability of arable land for farming, which will immediately impact food output.”

Shettima also announced a collaboration between Tinubu’s administration and mechanisation companies to increase farmland availability, boosting agricultural production.

He further highlighted the ongoing support for the agricultural sector through funding from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

“We will deploy concessionary capital to the sector, especially towards fertilizer, processing, mechanization, seeds, chemicals, equipment, feed, labour, among others,” he said.

“The concessionary funds will ensure that food is always available and affordable, thereby having a direct impact on Nigeria’s Human Capital Index (HCI).

“This administration is focused on ensuring the HCI numbers, which currently rank as the 3rd lowest in the world, are improved for increased productivity.”

The rising cost of food in the country has become an alarming issue, as data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on January 15, 2024, placed Nigeria’s food inflation at 33.9 percent.

Despite the government declaring a state of emergency on food security, prices continue to climb.