The Lagos State Commissioner of Agriculture, Miss Abisola Olusanya, has said on Wednesday that the administration is working to enforce regulations on the price of food items in the State.
Olusanya said this during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) at the event of the International Day of Forests held at the Lekki Conservation Centre in Lagos.
The event, titled “Forest and Innovation: New Solutions for a Better World,” was a collaborative effort between the Lagos State Ministry of Agriculture and the Nigerian Conservation Foundation.
According to her, the real issue is not the scarcity of food, but in the decreased disposable income among individuals.
- “The question here in Nigeria is, ‘are we facing a food shortage or food? Affordability is the issue because it is more of affordability issue.
- “So, to say food insecurity, the food is there, affordability might be an issue around supply and demand, which now goes back to insecurity.
- “For now, as a state government, we understand where our challenges are and we understand where our competitive advantage is.
- “If you focus on production only and you do not have an organised market, you might have an affordability issue which is what is going on, our markets are not regulated.
- “We are working on organising our markets to ensure we can work and start price regulation. When we can control the flow then you can stem price affordability issue,” Olusanya said.
She added that the Lagos State government was working assiduously on it, calling on other states to do the same.
What you should know
The price of food in Nigeria has incessantly increased since the removal of subsidy and the naira devaluation reforms implemented by President Bola Tinubu, leading to an inflation rate of 31.70% as of February 2024.
In addition, according to NBS, food inflation has risen to 37.92% on the back of higher average prices of items like bread and cereals, potatoes, yams and other tubers, fish, coffee, tea, and cocoa.
- While the federal government has declared a state of emergency on food security, the effects of the measures to curb high prices of food items are yet to be visible in the country.
- Nairemetrics also reported that the president directed the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security to immediately release about 42,000 metric tons of maize, millet, and other commodities from the national strategic reserves.
- According to the president, this effort is aimed at crashing the prices of food items in the country.