By Adeola Soetan
Democracy without food security ie availability, accessibility, affordability and food health is not a a true democracy. This is what we are witnessing in Nigeria with mass hunger and mass impoverishment of the people, and struggling working class whose minimum wage of N70, 000, yet to be paid generally, cannot buy a bag of rice, a bag of beans, a bag of Garri to feed a family of four for at least a month.
The poverty wage can only buy 40 tubers of yam, 35 loaves of family bread, can only buy less than 70 litres of petrol. That can’t be democracy but “hungercracy”. Hunger is a threat to democracy anywhere in the world. Hunger produces many angry foodlums daily.
The skyrocketing prices of food, mass unemployment & poverty due to Tinubu regime government of escalated economic hardship courtesy of his blind addiction to IMF – World Bank neo-liberal anti – people policies of privatization of the commanding heights of the economy, deregulation, removal of subsidies on gas & oil, electricity, train transportation & other public transport systems , commercialisation of all social infrastructure and devaluation of the “rolling stone” naira while the heartless leaders engage in profligacy and extravagant lifestyle is a major cause of food insecurity in Nigeria.
Terrorists have taken over a chunk of villages and farmlands particularly in the north and this has added to the low output of food production, processing, marketing and availability.
Food is life. So when food is not adequately supplied, and people can’t feed well, life is threatened and meaningless. A hungry man is an angry man, unlimited patience cannot feed a hungry man. Food, clothing and shelter are the 3 basic needs of life, food is the most essential. No serious government jokes with food security because mass hunger and flying prices of food have sent many governments packing. That’s the verdict of history.
The immediate solution is for government to reverse all its anti-poor neo-liberal economic policies including removal of oil subsidy which is the major cause of daily price jump of food beyond the reach of vast majority of the citizens who have been described as fantastically poor with over 70 percent living on one dollar per day.
The people must continue to put pressure on government to reverse these crooked heartless policies that have devalued life and dignity of the citizens.
It’s not that we don’t have more than enough farmers in Nigeria, around 70% of the population , while US has less than 5% Canada has 2% of their population into agriculture..So, it’s a demonstration of lack of adequate knowledge of food insecurity problems, or fraudulent application of knowledge to continue regurgitating the old stupid idea of the indolent ruling class that all citizens, journalists, teachers, professors, doctors, lawyers, engineers, police, soldiers, pilots, students, unemployed youths, vulganisers, mechanics, rewire, spare parts dealers, drivers, conductors, market women, IT experts, retirees, etc must all be farmers as a solution to mass hunger, before Nigerians can be hunger free and be food secured. Such a nation only exists in the warped imagination of confused government and its cronies to escape responsibility and shift the blame of its bad not well thought out anti-poor economic policies. Example is the spontaneous announcement of “Subsidy is Gone” and devaluation of the rolling stone Naira.
The immediate economic side effect is the flying inflation of food prices beyond the citizens and cut in the purchasing power of Nigerians. “All must go and farm” as a solution to hunger crisis is a product of lazy minds. Even where and when the food is available, many people can’t buy because they are too poor to buy.
Women selling fish like “Oku Eko” “Panla”, “Oju Yobo”, Croaker, catfish are protesting that they can no longer eat from the fish they are selling because of price hike, low patronage and little or no profit at all. Any attempt to eat from it and feed their families from their stock would eat deep into their “gbomu le lattern” loan support from their credit given organizations and they would close shop. Of course many of them like Iya Ramota, a widow and single parent of 3, have closed shop. Just like the two Iya Ologi in my village are no more selling pap. One is now “Omo Odo Alamala”.Server at Amala joint and the other is,, Alagbafo” begging people around for clothe washing. So reducing the solution to mass hunger to “more farmers to the farm” is eccentric, ridiculous and laughable. Economic policy of government is the major determinant of food security, not how many people are on the farm.
The question to ask the “go to farm” orchestra is where are the lands to farm without government support to create a conducive, supportive mechanized farm settlements of the type of Awolowo led western regional government? How do you tell more people to go to farm when, for instance, many poultry farmers are collapsing due to unbearable cost of feeds, other inputs and skyrocketing cost of electricity and transportation and low patronage? . To farm on an acre or two acres of land now in the village can’t cost less than N2 – N3 million naira including cost of land acquisition, survey, clearing, plouhing, seed /stem purchase, weeding, cattle pest and human pest control and management, transport weeding etc. ,
A gradual shift from subsistent farming to mechanized farming by pooling poor subsistent farmers together for maximum production, processing, marketing and enough income to the farmers is recommended among other factors.
(Adeola Soetan
Democracy Vanguard
Convener, Farmers – Media Forum
08037207856)
