LCCI urges targeted agric-based interventions to tackle food inflation

President of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Gabriel Idahosa, has urged the Federal Government to carry out more intense direct and targeted interventions on food production to tackle the country’s rising food inflation.

Urging the government to focus more on boosting the supply side of the agriculture sector, he said it should focus on agricultural mechanisation and research and adopt lower import duty exchange rates used to import agricultural input and establish more functional agro-industrial hubs across the country.

Adding that the rising food inflation is one of the major drivers fueling unrest and the planned protests, he said the Federal Government needs to invest more in building the required infrastructure to drive the deployment of compressed natural gas (CNG)-powered transportation so that food can be deployed cheaper across the country.

He added that information and communication technology (ICT) can be utilised to disseminate agricultural advisory services, market information and weather forecasts to farmers while calling for the empowerment of farmer cooperatives and associations that play a central role in distributing and managing subsidised inputs.

“Urgently improve transportation infrastructure, including road networks, to reduce the cost of transportation and mitigate inflationary pressures across various sectors of the economy. Most importantly, efforts should be intensified to strengthen agricultural value chains, including establishing adequate storage facilities and promoting agro-processing industries to reduce post-harvest losses and enhance food security,” he said.