Food Inflation: Expect Bumper Harvest, Agric Minister Assures Nigerians

The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security Abubakar Kyari says the country is expecting a bumper harvest before year-end. 

Food inflation has reached 40 per cent according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), pushing the prices of essential commodities beyond the reach of millions of Nigerians.

But Kyari said the Federal Government has measures in place to address the situation including ramping up farming which would increase food production.

“It [bumper harvest] is about October-November this year. That’s when we are going to have the harvest. We are expecting a bumper harvest baring any natural issues,” Kyari said on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, 

“Well, I am just giving you the assurance that we will have a bumper harvest,” he said.

According to him, one of the reasons for the acute food shortage in the country at the moment is also linked to seasonal reasons.

“The season we have here is a critical issue we have in agriculture. This is what we call the lean season and this is between June-July and the next harvest,” the minister said.

Apart from this, Kyari attributed the food shortage to other issues such as reduced landmass, flooding, and others.

“The shrinkage of land mass for agric, flooding, habitation problems, and insecurity…An ageing farming population; younger people are not going into agriculture now,” he said.

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