World Food Day:Inflation-weary Nigerians begging, borrowing for survival

• World Bank: Over 1m Nigerians experiencing severe food insecurity
• ‘Nigerians are dying of hunger’
• Food availability a major challenge, says Yusuf
• Children are suffering, parents hopeless
• Spike in month-on-month inflation raises fresh anxiety  

Amid the worsening food crisis rocking the polity, more Nigerians are assuming the beg-borrow-or-steal desperate mode of survival. Despite the conservative threshold of N1,255 per healthy diet, more citizens are finding feeding unbearable, with a growing population resorting to alms begging to put a meal on their table.

Findings showed that the rising food scarcity and unaffordability are pushing more people into poverty, increasing their vulnerability to insecurity and malnutrition as many across states even resort to waste bins in search of daily food.

Evidence gathered across major cities nationwide revealed that the group of street and corporate beggars has significantly increased, with food being the main motivation.

A recent report from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) showed that the amount Nigerians borrowed for personal needs in January 2024 rose by 14.3 per cent when compared with December 2023. A newer report would likely reflect a worse scenario.

The report also stated that personal loans outpaced retail loans, accounting for 79.2 per cent of consumer credit, while retail loans accounted for 20.8 per cent of total consumer credit.

Another CBN report titled, “Inflation Expectations Survey Report” for July 2024, revealed that many Nigerians will struggle to meet their expenditures between now and 2025, a move that will force many households to borrowing to mitigate the current economic hardship in the country.

Another SBM Intelligence report revealed that 27 per cent of Nigerians across different income categories now resort to loan apps to keep up with their living expenses in the wake of record inflation.

Hence, stakeholders, on account of the 2024 World Food Day commemorated today, have expressed fear that many Nigerians who survived the COVID-19 epidemic may continue to die of hunger unless the current challenge is tackled.

Official records showed that inflation rate did pull back in July and August, raising the hope that anti-market behaviours that have fuelled the price crisis in the past two years could begin to ease. But the October consumer price index (CPI) realised yesterday, edged up again.

The headline inflation rose to 32.7 per cent while the disturbing composite food segment also went up for the first time in three months to 37.8 per cent. But more worrisome, the month-on-month change, which shows the intensity of the inflation rate, was at a seven-month high (2.64 per cent), raising fresh fear about the price outlook.

According to the latest CPI released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the food inflation rate increased in August 2024 to 37.52 per cent on a year-on-year basis, which was 8.18 per cent higher, compared to the rate recorded in August 2023 at 29.34 per cent.

While those are in theory, the reality is that the prices of staple foods are beyond the average earnings of most families – minus clothing, shelter, health, education and other basic obligations.

By the conservative estimate of the national average cost of a healthy diet of N1,255/meal (as of August figures), a family of four would require N150,000 a month to have a meal a day. And at two meals each a day, N301,200.

With the federal and state governments still paying lip service to the new minimum wage of N70,000, not many workers in the country earn as much as N300,000 per month.

According to the World Bank’s Food Security Update Report released recently, Nigeria is facing a worsening food security crisis, with over one million additional people experiencing severe food shortages in 2024 compared to 2023.

The report said the domestic food price inflation in the country remains among the highest globally, with food prices increasing by 37.5 per cent year-on-year as of August 2024. This puts an enormous strain on household incomes, making it increasingly difficult for low-income families to afford basic foods.

It states: “18 countries experienced worsening situations due to factors including intensified conflict and climate-related shocks, such as droughts. Notable examples include Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Yemen, each witnessing an increase of more than one million people facing high levels of food insecurity from the previous year.”

Nigeria’s growing crisis is said to be a combination of climate-induced issues and socio-political instability in various geopolitical regions, the report noted.

“In Nigeria, an estimated 1.6 million hectares of land have been inundated, including 342,650 hectares of cropland, affecting 685,770 vulnerable individuals. In Mali, 344,000 people were affected and 1.6 million hectares of land flooded, including nearly 500,000 hectares of cultivated land,” it added.

The Founder of Izanu Africa, Comfort Onyaga, who rued the current food crisis, told The Guardian that there is no end in sight to the current challenges, adding that more Nigerians might die of hunger if something drastic is done.

She added that the current state of food insecurity in Nigeria speaks to the fact that Nigeria has failed in fulfilling one of Article 25 of the 1948 Universal Declarations of Human Rights, which says ‘everyone has the right to food’.

“If there is no stability in the food supply chain for households to eat, if there is no availability of food, if there is no accessibility in terms of the economic purchasing power of food by households, then I do not see any hope in sight for us. Nigerians will continue to die of hunger,” she said.
Onyaga noted that food availability cannot be achieved in the country within the context of the current realities the country has found itself.

“In a country where the percentage of the budget allocated for agricultural and food security is way below the benchmark agreed upon at the Maputo declaration – the agreement was 10 per cent.

“If the Federal Government would not or is not willing to fulfil that obligation in response to the agreement that was entered into without anyone pointing a gun at their heads to agree to 10 per cent budget reallocation, then we are jokers. We are not ready to address food insecurity. Truly, Nigerians are dying of hunger.

“The Nigeria of today is a Nigeria where the household cannot afford a tuber of yam. Yam is a staple food across households, and across different regions, regardless of their ethnic affiliation in Nigeria. How did we get to the point where people go to the market to buy not even half or a quarter of a tuber of yam, but you go to the market and you have to buy like a piece of a quarter of a tuber of yam, just because you want to eat yam? Does it even make sense?” she said.

On his part, the Founder of the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE), Dr. Muda Yusuf, described the food availability challenge as a very serious crisis, saying there is an urgent need to address all critical issues, in light of the worsening poverty situation in the country.

“The current food crisis is very serious. Of course, there are quite several factors responsible – insecurity, cost of transportation, high level of wastage, factor of the macroeconomic environment, and lack of adoption of technology in the sector.

“Insecurity has considerably affected our agricultural output, especially food crops. Nigeria is a very vast country and we don’t have a cost-effective mode of transportation. Over 95 per cent of our goods, including food crops, are moved by road. This is highly inefficient, and not cost-effective. So, this has over the years been adding or compounding the problem of the cost of food.

“There is also the factor of the macroeconomic environment. I’m talking now about the exchange rate in particular. The economy is highly sensitive to exchange rate movements. And exchange rate depreciation has a systemic impact on all goods and services within the economy because the farmer that is growing the crops will also be impacted one way or the other by the general inflation in the economy. So, the farmer also has to factor the inflationary condition into the pricing of his or her food products.”

Yusuf advised the Federal Government to address the issue of insecurity so that traditional farmers can go back to the farm and continue farming. “We need to ensure that as much as possible, the country is secured for those who are farming to continue to do their farming.

“Secondly is to ensure that we leverage technology. Whatever incentives we need to create for increased technology adoption in agriculture, we have to do it. Then, we need to subsidise agriculture. All the critical inputs, seedlings, equipment, agrochemicals, and so on, even fertiliser, all these things need to be subsidised and made available in good time. The farmers have been complaining that even the fertiliser that the government is making available, they’re not getting it on time. And in some cases, they’re not even getting the right quantity.

“And we need to ensure that we have all-year-round farming. This idea of relying on rain-fed agriculture is completely outdated. And we cannot cope with feeding such a large population by depending on rain-fed agriculture. And we need to attract a lot more young people into agriculture. And the way to do that is to ensure that we leverage technology. The young people are not ready to carry hoes and cutlasses,” he stated.

The Executive Officer, Oreka Farms Limited, Ogun State, Bose Ruth Suberu, lamented that while children are suffering as a result of the food crisis, parents are currently hopeless.

“I am not seeing an end to the food crisis. In a few months, the cost of food commodities will be higher than we are experiencing currently. The problem that resulted in the food crisis has not been taken care of and we expect an end to it. How is that possible?

“Climate change is dealing with farmers with excess rain and longer periods of drought, the cost of inputs has reduced the number of farmers and those left in the profession can barely afford it, hence the low yields from their efforts. Insecurity has sent a lot of farmers out of business and what about corruption; government interventions have been diverted to non-farmers, service providers supplying inferior and low-quality inputs and a whole lot of issues,” she said.

World Food Day is an international day celebrated every year worldwide on October 16 to commemorate the founding of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation in 1945. This year’s theme is ‘Right to Foods for a Better Life and a Better Future’.