Covid 19: Impact On Nigeria’s agric sector

The Coronavirus has turned the world into a ghost city, with the agricultural sector as one of the most affected; JOHN OBA writes on steps being taken to avert the looming food crisis. 

As it stands today, Nigeria seems to be heading towards a recession. According to experts a country is officially in recession when two consecutive quarters have negative GDP results.

The outbreak of Coronavirus and the subsequent lockdown across the world is definitely complicating the whole problem with developed economies like the United States of America, Britain, among many others already announcing measures to salvage the situation.

According to an analyst, Ayo Akinfe: “This shutdown will simply be devastating on mankind because we are consuming and not producing goods at the same rate. This is simply not sustainable for any lengthy period of time. African economies will be particularly hard hit because they rely on selling primary products. At the moment, the price of raw materials like crude oil, bauxite, tin, gold, diamonds, uranium, cocoa, palm oil, plantain, etc is at rock bottom. With industry not working, supply has exceeded demand, leading to the growth of huge stockpiles, in turn leading to a resultant price crash.”

He noted that African economies are not like the US that already signed a $2.2 trillion stimulus package. 

“In the UK, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, has signed a coronavirus stimulus package worth $66 billion. Even Malaysia has announced a $57 billion stimulus package, while in South Korea, theirs is worth $80bn.

“Nigeria’s foreign reserves stand at a mere $37.5 billion while those of Egypt are $45 billion, South Africa $54 billion, Algeria $65 billion and Morocco $24 billion. African nations will have to totally deplete their foreign reserves just to fund their 2020 budgets,” he said.

Panic buying driving food prices up

Already COVID-19 has negatively impacted on global food security and Nigeria is not exempted, as prices of food items have gone up, many are now engaged in panic buying with the announcement of two weeks total lockdown across the country further aggravating an already stressed economy.

‘Strangulating economic conditions’

Also the President, National Association of Nigeria Traders (NANTS), Barr. Ken Ukaoha, speaking on the effects of the lockdown appealed to the government to consider further palliatives in the face of prevalent strangulating economic conditions staring the informal traders and others in the SMEs bracket.

He said traders have been hit by the COVID-19 scourge which has disrupted all trading activities globally. 

In the light of these economic traumas, governments at various levels are hereby called upon to, as a matter of urgency, begin consideration of palliatives that can stabilize the economy from the aftermath of the Covid-19 turbulence.

Possible losses

Meanwhile, the Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN) has raised the alarm over the effect of the lockdown on the sector, saying it may result in the lost of over N3 trillion investments in poultry.

On Friday in Maiduguri, the national president, Mr. Ezekiel Ibrahim said Nigeria’s government need to thread careful in locking down the nation in response to the rampaging pandemic.

He said: “The situation of the poultry products market is not stable at the moment, and if urgent steps are not taken to remove the restriction on the movement of vehicles conveying such critical poultry like day-old-chicks (DOCs), meat and eggs, poultry feeds and drugs which are daily needed by all Nigerians, the poultry industry which is on the part of becoming the mainstay of the Nigerian livestock industry might be completely destroyed.”

Ibrahim, while claiming that present investments in the poultry industry is put conservatively at N3 trillion, added that “We are trying to communicate the close relationship between food producing companies that are considered system relevant and other infrastructural sectors that are tightly connected and without which the food supply chain can’t be kept on.

“It is important to relax and make flexible the rules that restrict movement of all kinds of vehicles, and appealing to government at the federal and state governments to allow transport- trucks and buses carrying inbound supplies or outbound products of food, chicken and day-oil-chicks (DOCs) and other FMCG products to be allowed to operate to ensure supplies continuity of essential products.”

He added that: “While the above is considered as very urgent and utmost for the continued supplies of protein to Nigerians, we implore the government to consider granting some palliatives to egg and day old chicks producers who are unable to sell their chicks, eggs and feeds as a result of the lockdown caused by the measures already taken by the state government in restricting inter-state transport movement

Another threat is the fact that Nigeria may not be prepared to face food supply emergencies because of possible empty grain reserves scattered around the country.

Though some Nigeria silos are concessioned, some has the capacity to accommodate about 100,000 metric tones of grains with about 20 silos in the complex, and each of the silos having the capacity of accommodating about 164 metric tones of grains, there are no evidence that Nigeria has enough stock to cater for the need of Nigerians if the need arises.   .

Coordinated, robust plans

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Chief Economist, Maximo Torero Cullen, said success in combating the virus will entail coherent and robust plans for our food systems.

He stressed the priority of bolstering capacities to enhance emergency food assistance and bolster safety nets for vulnerable populations

According to him, “Low and middle-income countries account for around a third of the world’s food trade, which provides very significant contributions both to incomes and welfare. Countries that depend on imported food (such as Nigeria) are especially vulnerable to slowing trade volumes, especially if their currencies decline. While retail food prices are likely to rise everywhere, their impact is more adverse when sudden, extreme and volatile, and where food costs account for a larger share of household budgets and where spikes can have longer-term effects on human development and economic productivity in the future,” he said

He said there are still supply chains, which in the case of farmers, are a complex web of interactions involving farmers and farm labourers, key inputs such as fertilizers, seeds and veterinary medicines, processing plants, freight distributors, retailers and more. A global pandemic will quickly strain such webs, so to prevent food shortages, every effort must be made to keep them intact and moving efficiently.

“Farmers won’t grow what nobody can buy, so the issue is about affordability but also availability and accessibility. Insuring the safety of food-system workers is paramount.”

Food crisis

There is no gain saying the fact that this lockdown will adversely affect the Nigeria food supply chains, especially when smallholder farmers who produced 70 per cent of food consumed in the nation.

With this in mind, the Agric Bureau is a group of indigenous Agro Business investors has called on the Nigeria government to urgently act as the country may be facing a crisis in food supplies like never seen before. 

The group therefore urged the government to allow the uncoordinated production and distribution of food stuff to continue or o take action as failure will lead to food shortages for large portions of the population, extreme inflation of food prices and massive food waste.

The coordinator, Mr Suleiman Dikwa, speaking in Abuja recently warned that shutting down systems without concurrently redirecting resources into quickly developing alternative production and supply chains of critical resources will lead to problem.

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