Food Crisis: Govt orders restriction of grains exportation
31.5m Nigerians To Be In Food Crisis Situation By June – FAO
The Federal government has directed the enforcement of all extant laws prohibiting exportation of grains from Nigeria to ensure food stability and sufficiency in the country.
This came as the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) and other partners have projected that 31.5 million Nigerians across 26 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) would be in a food crisis situation or worse between June and August 2024.
Comptroller General, Nigeria Customs Service, Bashir Adeniyi Adewale, who made the disclosure while engaging dealers at Dawanaw international grains market in Kano State, yesterday, declared that the service is empowered to eliminate any act of sabotage that would impede economic growth and trigger hunger and starvation in the country.
Adewale told the grains dealers that Customs has received President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s order to henceforth enforce the food export prohibition law, especially at this period when Nigerians are struggling with food crisis.
He said Customs would deploy intelligence to stop all attempts to export rice, beans, sorghum, maize, millet, among other locally produced grains, and already imported foods.
He said: “In Nigeria, we have the Export Prohibition Act; the law that prohibits food exportation. The laws have been there; for the fact that Nigeria was food sufficient, we did not implement it. But now, Nigeria is in a food crisis.
“The President has asked me to request for your understanding that during this period, the law prohibiting exportation of grain will take full course. Maize, sorghum, beans, rice and other items locally produced in Nigeria should not be exported and those imported should not be taken out of the country.
It is only when we are food sufficient that we can be talking of exportation.” The FAO report revealed that 24.7 million people in the states under review were already in a food crisis situation.
The Cadre Hamonise report presented yesterday in Abuja at a workshop showed that food consumption was under stress in most of the states and was in a crisis situation in some local councils in Adamawa, Borno, Kastina, Yobe and Zamfara states.
The report noted that during the projected period of June to August 2024, more households are expected to face crisis levels of food consumption in the states.
“Deteriorated food consumption situation was observed among populations in inaccessible areas and in Internally Displaced Persons camps in Adamawa, Borno, Sokoto and Zamfara states,” the report said.
The report attributed the food insecurity security situation to the spike in food prices due to high production and transportation cost caused by the removal of fuel subsidies and its resultant impact on inflation and consumer price index rates on both food and basic non-food items
The Country Representative of FAO and to the ECOWAS, Kouavou Dominique Koffy, said the aim of the workshop was to analyse available food security data for the purpose of identifying populations and areas at risk of food and nutrition insecurity in Nigeria, and to propose appropriate measures to prevent emergency of or escalation of the situation.
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