The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari, has said food production has increased under the President Bola Tinubu administration, but gaps in processing and distribution continue to keep food prices high.

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Kyari said the government had made considerable progress in food production, with farm-gate prices falling, but consumers were yet to fully benefit because of challenges between the point of production and the market.

The minister disclosed this in an interview with ARISE NEWS on Friday while responding to concerns over the slow impact of the government’s agricultural reforms on food prices.

“Let’s go down memory lane and think about the figures in 2023 and 2024. When you look at those and compare them with what the reforms of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration have done, we are on the right track,” Kyari said.

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He said government data showed that while production costs at the farm gate had declined, agro-processing remained a challenge.

“However, even if you look at the NBS figures, you would see that agro-processing has not come down, but production has come down. Which means at the farm gate, prices have come down considerably.

“So, these are other gaps that need to be looked at. But we have tackled the production of food, and we have seen considerable success in that regard,” the minister said.

Kyari attributed Nigeria’s continued dependence on food imports to population growth, low agricultural productivity, limited access to land and the cost of farm inputs and production.

“Due to certain factors, we’ve not been able to catch up in terms of the growth of population. We are growing on average about 8 to 9 million people every year. 25 years ago, we were half of what we are today, and 25 years from now, we will be double what we are. Of course, there are other factors: access to land, and productivity is still at a very low stage.

“To catch up with that, I think it’s something that we need to look at—the issue of productivity, having good quality seeds. This is what we’ve been trying to do; we’ve been able to at least impact a lot of farmers to give them subsidized inputs and subsidized seeds,” he said.

📰 Source: Punch Nigeria