The National president of Potato Farmers Association of Nigeria (PFAN)Chief Daniel Okafor has said that Nigerians should not expect prices of food items in the market to come down in so far as factors driving prices up are not addressed by government.
Okafor spoke Wednesday at the 3-day 46th Regular Meeting of the National Council on Agriculture and Food Security in Calabar, Cross River State.
He pointed at incessant extortions of their members at illegal checkpoints while conveying their produce, saying these contribute to shortage and high costs of foods.
“Our farmers who convey, say trucks of oranges from Benue State pay N20,000 and sometimes N50,000 at several checkpoints in order to transport their products from one state to another. This is sheer extortion.”
He said this huge extortion would of course be passed down to final consumers.
He called on government to curtail these checkpoints to enable farm products move freely to their destinations.
Okafor who underscored the importance of the meeting however lamented the outcome of similar meetings held in the past which he said was never implemented.
“It shouldn’t just be all talks and no deliberate intention to implement what the experts and stakeholders are profferring at this Council meeting.
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“This type of meeting has been held some years back but implementation of the outcomes are hardly done.
“Government should be proactive in tackling security challenges bedeviling farming in the country. There’s also the natural challenge of flooding.
“How shall we have food security in Nigeria when bandits kidnap and kill farmers, occupy vast farmlands? Insecurity is a big concern to farmers. Many farmers have abandoned their farms as a result. Food availability is seriously threatened. Therefore, high costs of foods would persist.
“So many Nigerians are going hungry. The quantities of foods in the markets are few. And so, the costs are very high.”
Okafor maintained that insecurity in Nigeria is a major cause of food shortages, adding that the situation would persist all over the country because of continual kidnapping and killing of farmers.
He called the federal government to implement the outcomes of the meeting, cautioning that it should no longer be all talks and no action.
He also called on government to give farm inputs to the right farmers, not politicians.
