Food crisis looms as silos get empty.

Ibekimi Oriamaja Reports

Growing insecurity is seriously disrupting Nigeria’s economy in many areas, as a significant amount of the country’s produced food is lost because it cannot be transported to silos or strategic grain stockpiles. In the same way that the crisis lowers income and decreases the amount of food produced in the nation, this contributes to hunger. Reports from DANIEL ESSIET.

Domestic food production in Nigeria is drastically decreasing as security conditions deteriorate. Additionally, it has destroyed huge farmland regions, forced thousands of farmers out of their homes, and driven up the price of agricultural inputs significantly.

In Nigeria’s northern regions, particularly in the vast food producing belts, robbers have hampered farmers’ efforts to conduct animal vaccinations and irrigation. They have also cut off the food supply, which has raised the price of food. On the other hand, attacks have occurred in rural areas in the Northwest, which are typically used as food baskets for processing operations. Analysts conclude that uncertainty has resulted in widespread unemployment and a sharp erosion of livelihoods.

Agribusiness Stakeholder and Coordinator of the Community of Agricultural Stakeholders of Nigeria (CASON), Anga Sotonye, is one of them. Sotonye, whose agribusiness firm has lost more than N20 million as a result of herders’ ravaging behavior, is a victim. He emphasized that the growing season could be hampered if the pattern continued and that insecurity is the largest threat to agriculture and the food industry.

He claims that the circumstance has led to an increase in food insecurity and poverty, erasing decades of progress in eradicating hunger. He and other interested parties are fighting for the government to create a sector-led farming community safety strategy since community watchfulness is no longer sufficient to address the issue. They emphasized the need for actionable plans to make farming safety a national priority and guarantee Nigerians’ access to food in the future.

The ripple effect

In the end, banditry’s effects and the interruption of farming channels have weakened food security. Sotonye claims that farmers are reducing the number of visits to their properties. We have bandits breaking into our fields and preventing farmers from accessing them. Most often, farmers are kidnapped on their farms. Due of insecurity, I am unable to visit the majority of my farms around the nation. Many farmers are abandoning their operations.

According to Sotonye, rural farmers have been forced from their land as a result of the fear and panic that armed gangs have induced in them. As a result, farmers, especially those in the North, are unable to grow enough crops like maize in large enough amounts to fill silos.

Dr. Victor Iyama, National President of FACAN in Nigeria, shares similar worries and contends that safe access to land is essential for ensuring food security, industry expansion, and inclusion. Iyama raised concern over farmers’ lack of self-defense.

SILOS’S PURPOSE

The stocking of grains is one area where the government has been engaging with the business sector to enhance as it pursues its self-sufficiency in food supply policy. Standard silos with capacities ranging from 5.000 to 25.000 tonnes offer grain storage, bagging, and distribution services. According to Dr. Olufemi Oladunni, Chief Executive of the Agriculture and Rural Management Training Institute (ARMTI) in Ilorin, Kwara State, safeguarding the nation’s food supply through grain storage facilities is essential if the federal government is to avoid any reversal of the sector’s advances.

The facilities haven’t been operating at full capacity to boost the total tonnes of grains in the government’s reserve to 200,000 metric tonnes in the past two years since silo complexes were concessioned by the federal government in 2019. The fact that the nation hasn’t been able to maintain the minimum 3.5 million tonnes of grain reserves required at any given moment, as required by the United Nations, is one of the main causes of concern, according to analysts. The government’s assertion that the nation has recently achieved self-sufficiency in food production and security is called into question, according to observers, who also came to the conclusion that drawing from the SGRs was a sign that food production issues still exist in the nation.

The privatization of the silo complex activities, according to the Infrastructure Concession and Regulatory Commission, will generate N99.3 billion in economic value. The concession was started in 2013 by Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, a former minister of agriculture and rural development, who believed the federal government lacked the resources to operate and maintain the 33 silo complexes.

Government does not have that type of funding to oversee them, he said. As a result, we want to lease this enormous storage infrastructure to the private sector so they may manage it more effectively and profitably.

On September 19, 2018, Audu Ogbeh, who succeeded him, declared the concession procedure. Following permission from the Federal Executive Council (FEC), Ogbeh announced that 33 silos with a combined capacity of 1,360,000 metric tonnes of grains are distributed almost evenly among the nation’s geopolitical regions. Additionally, he stated that the first instance will bring in N6 billion for the government over a ten-year period.

The silo complexes were spread out across the nation and included a 100,000 Metric Tonnes (MT) facility in Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State; a 25,000 Mt facility in Ogoja, Cross River State; a 25,000 Mt facility in Akure, Ondo State; a 25,000 Mt facility in Jos, Plateau State; a 25,000 Mt facility in Sokoto; a 25,000 Mt facility in Gaya, Kano State;

Other amounts include 11,000mt in Lafiagi, Kwara State, 25,000mt in Igbariam, Anambra State, 25,000mt in Akwa Ibom State, 25,000mt in Ebonyi State, 25,000mt in Jahun, Jigawa State, 25,000mt in Kaduna, 25,000mt in Makurdi, Benue State, 25,000mt in Gombe, 25,000mt in
Eight silos—Ado-Ekiti, Ogoja, Akure, Jos, Sokoto, Gaya, Bauchi, and Ikenne—were given to Agro Universal Consortium, while five—Kwali, Bulasa, Jahun, Kaduna, and Lafiagi—were given to Matrixville Consortium. There are three for Flour Mills: Makurdi, Gombe, and Ibadan. Ezilo, Uyo, and the silo complex in Igbariam were given to Ebony Agro Industries Ltd., Neon Farms Africa Consortium, and Coscharis Farms, respectively.

According to Adesina, as part of the ministry’s storage infrastructure for the Strategic Grains Reserves, the government wants the private sector to run and manage the silos around the nation (SGR). For the benefit of farmers and the country, six agro-allied businesses that won the bids—Agro Universal Consortium, Matrixville Nigeria Ltd, Flour Mills Limited, Ebony Agro Industries Ltd, Neon Farms Africa Consortium, and Coscharis Farms Ltd—were given access to the silos on May 16, 2019. Operating silo complexes have been Flour Mills, Agro Universal Consortium, and Matrixville Nigeria Ltd.

The majority of the 33 silos located throughout the nation, which have a combined capacity of 1.3 million metric tonnes of grains, are either empty or being used for other purposes. The federal government mandated the release of 70,000 metric tonnes of grains from the SGR as a palliative for the vulnerable during the COVID-19 shutdown. What was left was insufficient to allow intervention in other sectors that require assistance. It fell well short of what the people at the time needed. The federal government had designated six of the 33 silos for a national reserve, according to Dr. Sule Haruna, director of the strategic grains reserve at the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. He added that it was from these that the 70,000 metric tons were distributed to the frontline states that were most at risk during the COVID-19 lockdown.

Impact of security on silos

Recently, President Muhammadu Buhari gave Muhammad Abubakar instructions to release 40,000 metric tons of grains from the country’s Strategic Grains Reserves for distribution to poor Nigerians. The Minister claims that the President was alarmed by the nation’s rising food inflation and looked for a solution to mitigate its effects on common Nigerians who might not have the resources to purchase the pricey food goods from the market.

The federal government ordered the release of 70,000 metric tonnes of grains from the SGR as consolation for vulnerable Nigerians in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the country’s food stockpiles were reportedly reduced to only 32,000 metric tonnes as a result. He urged the government to speed up efforts to restock the food vault, however, and stated that the supplies have now been replenished to 90,000 metric tonnes.

Even though the federal government made significant investments in the construction of silos to increase food security, many of the facilities were not being used. Analysts view this as a concerning result of the unrest, as more farmers are being pushed off their land. As a result of grain silos becoming bare, the food crisis in Nigeria is getting worse. The 45 silos in Ogun are no longer functional. Many of the silos found in farm villages throughout Oyo State, including those in Saki, Monatan, Ogbomoso, and Iseyin, are not in use.

Oladunni pointed out that Nigeria will continue to experience a sharp fall in the number of farmers and will be unable to draw in new ones without safe farming communities.

He insisted that there is no way the silos and the national grains reserve will be filled to increase the country’s preparation and resilience to upcoming shocks without protecting the farms and the supply chain. “How can we draw from the silos when people aren’t creating enough,” he said. How can people produce food that the government can purchase and keep in silos if they cannot access the farms? To fill the silos, the government often purchases from the government.

Prof. EmilOlorun Ambrose Aiyelari, a former dean of the faculty of agriculture at the University of Ibadan, expressed concerns about food shortages driving up prices while reiterating that the silos would not be overflowing with grains in the face of growing insecurity. He insisted that low food production and herder attacks on farmers are to blame for the majority of the nation’s silos being empty of grains. “These people will simply drive in their cows with a month until harvest.” They occasionally bring anywhere from 20 to 100 cows to walk over your land. So, it is currently a concern for farmers. The silos will remain barren. The flour mills in Ibadan have received the silos. It serves as a storage facility for their goods. I’m not sure where they obtain their grains from.

Professor Aiyelari of Agriculture Engineering at the University of Ibadan said that the country’s SGR needed to be underperforming in order to avert food shortages as well as to control inflationary pressures. An increasing dependency on imports of staple foods would be one of the main consequences of insecurity. Iyama, however, would not favor such a circumstance. The scenario has, however, resulted in drastically different farming environments for farmers in the North and the South. Currently, a few farming communities in the North are regarded as safe havens. In contrast to the past, when almost all states were suitable for farming, this implies that only a few states where there is even a modicum of security are where farming activities can take place. Iyama encouraged the government to use regions deemed suitable for cultivation in order to lower the skyrocketing food prices. There are still some places, he said, “where insecurity is not as prevalent. In states with lower levels of insecurity, we should encourage more individuals to start farming.