The All Farmers Association of Nigeria, (AFAN), has stated that food shortages will persist across the country due to on-going kidnappings, killings of farmers, and the occupation of farmlands.
The association also expressed serious concerns over large-scale extortion of farmers at increasing numbers of illegal checkpoints in parts of the country.
AFAN’s National vice-president, Chief Daniel Okafor, spoke to newsmen at the 46th Regular Meeting of the National Council on Agriculture and Food Security in Calabar, Cross River State.
He called on the federal government to implement the outcomes of the meeting, cautioning that it should no longer be “all talks and no action”. It shouldn’t just be all talks and no deliberate intention to implement what the experts and stakeholders are proposing at this Council meeting.
“Government should be pro-active in tackling the security challenges bedeviling farming in the country. There’s also the natural challenge of flooding.
According to him, “How shall we have food security in Nigeria when bandits kidnap and kill farmers, occupying 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 food costs will persist. So many Nigerians are going hungry. The quantities of food in the markets are low, and as a result, the costs are very high”.
Okafor, who is also the National President of the Potatoes Farmers Association of Nigeria (PFAN), explained that extortion at illegal checkpoints also contributes to the shortage and high cost of food. He said, “Our farmers who transport, say, trucks of oranges from Benue State pay a minimum of N20,000 at the many checkpoints on the routes to Anambra State, for instance. Isn’t this extortion? It is affecting farmers significantly. The burdens, of course, are passed to the final consumers”.
Okafor called on the Government to curtail these checkpoints to enable farm products to move freely to their destinations.
He also urged the Government to provide farm inputs to the right farmers, not politicians. He recommended that Nigerian farmers should benefit from budgetary allocations.
