• Ready for minimum wage negotiations

Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) has backed the continued importation of rice and other staple foods into the country.

It warned that stopping imports before Nigeria achieved self-sufficiency could trigger another surge in food prices and push the cost of a 50kg bag of rice back to about N120,000.

The President of TUC, Festus Osifo, who stated this in Abuja yesterday, said the immediate priority should be ensuring that Nigerians have access to affordable food. At the same time, the government should tackle insecurity and create the conditions for farmers to return to their farms.

With slightly over one year to the expiration of the current national minimum wage of N70,000, Osifo hinted that labour is ready to engage the government on the need to review the current wage floor.

He stated that the TUC was not in a hurry to engage at this point, saying the government could conclude new negotiations within one month as the data available supports a new wage.

Osifo insisted that the exchange rate of more than N1,400 to a dollar was a major driver of the high cost of living.

He further argued that the government should continue food importation to ward off acute hunger in the country.

Osifo said the labour movement had previously advocated food imports when the price of a 50kg bag of rice rose to about N120,000, attributing the sharp increase largely to supply shortages caused by insecurity that prevented farmers from accessing their farms.

According to him, the subsequent importation of food helped to increase supply and significantly reduce the price of rice.

Osifo, who is also the PENGASSAN president, said the government should therefore sustain the food-importation policy until domestic production is sufficient to meet national demand.

MEANWHILE, Lagos State Government has set a target of increasing local food production in the state from the current 25 per cent to 50 per cent, with poultry production identified as one of the key subsectors capable of driving the ambitious food security agenda.

The state government stated this at the launch of the ‘Chicks to Plate’ Project, an agricultural value-chain intervention initiated by the BATN Foundation in partnership with the Lagos State Agricultural Development Authority (LSADA).

The three-day capacity-building workshop is expected to train 200 prospective and practising poultry farmers in modern poultry production and management.

As part of the intervention, 40 outstanding layer farmers would also receive additional enterprise support to enable them to expand their businesses and improve productivity.

The Lagos State Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Systems, Abisola Olusanya, who spoke at the event through the Director of Agribusiness, Aramide Gansallo, said the initiative was in line with the administration’s determination to strengthen food production and reduce the state’s dependence on food supplies from outside Lagos.

Also, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture and Food Systems, Emmanuel Audu, represented by Bukola Idowu, described ‘Chicks to Plate’ as a natural progression of the partnership between the state government and BATN Foundation.