The House of Representatives Committee on Agricultural Colleges, Universities and Research Institutes has called for a thorough review of various intervention programmes the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is reeling out on agriculture, while lamenting continuous increase in food prices.
The committee also called on President Muhammadu Buhari to gear up in tackling security challenges in farms, which it said had contributed to the skyrocketing of the prices of food and farm produce.
Munir Babba Dan-Agundi, the chairman of the committee, stated this in Abuja during a three-day training on new agricultural value-chain opportunities in poultry, cassava and agro-processing.
The programme, organized by Federal College of Agricultural Produce Technology, Kano, in collaboration with Shabewa Nigeria Limited drew participants from Kano, Nassarawa, Oyo and Imo States.
Fielding questions from journalists on the sideline of the programme, Dan-Agundi lamented how many CBN intervention programmes were not getting to the targeted farmers due to cumbersome processes.
The lawmaker said, “Some of the government policies are also affecting the prices. Like, I always say, the interventions the government is giving, especially the CBN interventions, and the way they are being done in this country still need to be addressed.
“I have seen the president and I told him that at this point we must have synergy among agencies of government, CBN, Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Federal Ministry of Trade and Investment and Federal Ministry of Water Resources.
“It is not appropriate that everybody should do what they like. There must be a deliberate policy to bring them together and ensure that proper monitoring and evaluation is done.
“Some of the money given by the CBN…I don’t know, I am a farmer, a very big time farmer, but I don’t even know how to access the money. So, these are some of the challenges. As you can see, some other people find their ways to access the money. This is the way I think why our food prices are going up.”
He also attributed food price hike to COVID-19, saying, “It is not only peculiar to Nigeria, the skyrocketing prices on many things has to do with COVID-19.”
