How to Arrest Declining Food Production – DIG Leye Oyebade

Ronke Kehinde/

A retired police chief, DIG Leye Oyebade mni, has shared views on how to arrest the looming food crisis in the face of Nigeria’s increasing population.

During a panel discussion at a CBN Executive Seminar in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, Oyebade observed that the working strength for agriculture in the rural area is fast reducing as the population is increasing.

“This simply is a time bomb waiting to explode. The country is growing, and the population of people meant to produce the required quantity of food needed to feed the population is declining. This is a growing concern requiring a conscious policy to tackle,” he said.

Oyebade, who is the CEO of Rontol Foods, spoke on the topic: “Averting the Looming Food Crisis: A Clarion Call to Immediate and Near-term Policy Action.”

His bullet points were population explosion, climate change, security concerns, reduced processing centers, and storage facilities, as he discussed the factors contributing to the intending food crisis.

He expressed concerns about a steady decrease in rural dwellers leaving only 48% of Nigeria’s population living in the agrarian communities as of 2020.

“This implies that the working strength for agriculture in the rural area is fast reducing as the population is increasing. This simply is a time bomb waiting to explode. The country is growing, and the population of people meant to produce the required quantity of food needed to feed the population is declining. This is a growing concern requiring a conscious policy to tackle,” he said.

He identified Climate Change as another global phenomenon actively negating food availability for the geometrically growing population of Nigeria.

His words: “The inconsistency coming with weather element prediction is increasing at an alarming rate. The climatic distribution usually adopted to fix crops to the zone is currently being threatened. Farmers now experience unexpected drought and sometimes flooding. This has, in no small measures, affected the productivity from the farm.”

He said that Security Concerns “is largely dependent on climate change. As we are fast experiencing changes in rainfall patterns, migration of animals is increasing from the North to the South in search of pasture for the flock. This is increasing tension amongst crop farming and animal husbandry, thereby raising tensions, and sending the already inadequate numbers of farmers out of their farms, leading to a gross reduction in the quantity of produce per year. This is a growing concern, and it is also a factor contributing to the looming food crisis, if not checked.”

According to Oyebade, some processing companies are folding up or downsizing, leading to reduced demand for input from the farm, because of several factors around ease of doing business in Nigeria.

“This in turn is discouraging more people from going into agricultural production. This sometimes leads to massive post-harvest losses. Most processing centers operating in Nigeria have their cost of production higher when compared to importing similar product,” he said as he also observed that most of the storage facilities are moribund and that those available are either not properly maintained, old fashioned, or not upgraded.

Oyebade, who is into the production of high-quality Cassava Flour, Garri, Lafun, Odourless Fufu, and Yam Flour, said, “In the long run, we want to partner with the government so that we can build, operate, and transfer for them. Our attention is towards increasing food production, reducing crime, reducing youth unemployment, increasing youth empowerment, and reducing post-harvest loss of the farmer.

“We want the government to partner with us in providing infrastructures. The government should open up the villages by having more farm settlements to encourage people to stay there, with good roads, power, water, and accommodation. The creation of farm settlements is very critical. The ones we have now are those created in the Chief Obafemi Awolowo era. If there’s farm settlement, we’ll produce more, and people will eat.”  

Oyebade offered short and long-term solutions to the problem of food crisis.

He urged that fully mechanized farms should be encouraged, as well as the establishment of cluster farms, and processing centers as short-term solutions.

The suggested long-term policies are “encouraging and strengthening the Local Government/Private investors, as well as establishing Mop-up/Commodity board in each production locality.

He said, “The Local government authorities should be encouraged to establish a processing center within their jurisdiction which aims at a crop they have a comparative advantage in. Each local government should identify their strength as far as food production is concerned and establish a storage/processing/value addition center to curb post-harvest losses to the barest minimum.”

On the Mop-up/Community Board, he said: “This approach has been used previously in the farm settlements, where farmers from different locations move their produce to a central location where they are bought, stored, and preserved. The farmers are happy to get their produce exchanged for money without much ado about looking for customers and the commodities are also aggregated and sold in bulk for export or for industries.

“Policies should be developed around these identified points to arrest the looming food crisis in the face of our increasing population.”

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