It's such a moving piece. And I can't help but link this persistent food problems to Africa's low IQ because nutrition matters for a highly functioning brain, even across generations. But here we are where most Africans are barely able to afford food from generation to generation.
So we need abundant nutritious food at affordable prices, consistently, for like 100 years. That has to be the goal. There's no way we'll solve this problem of agricultural productivity and not have transformed our economies.
"Food policy must escape the eternally corrupt and terminally dangerous narrative of self-sufficiency. What we need is food abundance. Scarcity must never be an option"
I couldn't agree more with this part of this piece.
Non-negotiable. The Yoruba adage captures it all. There is a psychological aspect to food insecurity that often gets ignored. It is not just about being unable to reliably access preferred meals, but the psychological imprint to think food is all what matters. This is what happens when you spend most of your income on feeding. Nigerian policymakers still don't understand the gravity of what we have on our hands.
Food security should rank in the top three priorities of the FG and other subnationals. Every mechanism to reduce food prices should be aggressively pursued. This includes large subsidies to farmers, eliminating import duties on food items or even completely rethinking out food production architecture to favoring large-scale private farming and not the existing one. We must build capacity in industrial agriculture and food production before anything else.
Nice review… However no country on earth is self sufficient when it comes to the food it needs. America imports coffee ( Starbucks Coffee) from Columbia and Ethiopia , while Honduras and Peru supply America bananas.
During the golden age of Roman Empire - her staple crops chiefly came from Egypt , North- Africa. In fact wheat was cheaper in Rome than Cairo, Egypt at the time.
Exorbitant food prices and taxes were the catalyst to the French Revolution (1789).
Thus , the problem is not policy ( we have a lot of that already) but lack of political power to regulate , manage, invest , and above all , subsidise agriculture in Nigeria.
It's such a moving piece. And I can't help but link this persistent food problems to Africa's low IQ because nutrition matters for a highly functioning brain, even across generations. But here we are where most Africans are barely able to afford food from generation to generation.
So we need abundant nutritious food at affordable prices, consistently, for like 100 years. That has to be the goal. There's no way we'll solve this problem of agricultural productivity and not have transformed our economies.
"Food policy must escape the eternally corrupt and terminally dangerous narrative of self-sufficiency. What we need is food abundance. Scarcity must never be an option"
I couldn't agree more with this part of this piece.
Thank you, Mr. Tobi.
Non-negotiable. The Yoruba adage captures it all. There is a psychological aspect to food insecurity that often gets ignored. It is not just about being unable to reliably access preferred meals, but the psychological imprint to think food is all what matters. This is what happens when you spend most of your income on feeding. Nigerian policymakers still don't understand the gravity of what we have on our hands.
Food security should rank in the top three priorities of the FG and other subnationals. Every mechanism to reduce food prices should be aggressively pursued. This includes large subsidies to farmers, eliminating import duties on food items or even completely rethinking out food production architecture to favoring large-scale private farming and not the existing one. We must build capacity in industrial agriculture and food production before anything else.
Nice review… However no country on earth is self sufficient when it comes to the food it needs. America imports coffee ( Starbucks Coffee) from Columbia and Ethiopia , while Honduras and Peru supply America bananas.
During the golden age of Roman Empire - her staple crops chiefly came from Egypt , North- Africa. In fact wheat was cheaper in Rome than Cairo, Egypt at the time.
Exorbitant food prices and taxes were the catalyst to the French Revolution (1789).
Thus , the problem is not policy ( we have a lot of that already) but lack of political power to regulate , manage, invest , and above all , subsidise agriculture in Nigeria.