₦airaland Forum

Asswipemod:
Small small, you don de change.

helinues:
Nigeria Army have asked the governors to let them deal with those miscreants across the country .

XerXers:
Story

helinues:
Nigeria Army have asked the governors to let them deal with those miscreants across the country .

XerXers:
Benue, plateau, Kaduna, Niger Zamfara, Katsina, Sokoto, Kebbi are under occupation by non state actors and you want people back to farm? The only people going back to farm are Igbos, thank God for ESN. We are still packing huge money from tomato harvest

XerXers:
Chief of Army staff is from the coward region that lost Ilorin to fulani

blamingthedevil:
https://www.channelstv.com/2023/07/13/breaking-tinubu-declares-state-of-emergency-on-food-security/

IbeOkehie:
Sorry I disagree. I'm intimately familiar with the corruption of Commodity Boards when they existed. Let me give you an example based on the QUALITY argument you've put up here.

When Nigeria had commodity boards, they were the SOLE legal buyers of all their specified commodities and did enforce quality standards for say, cocoa. Cocoa beans would be ranked as A, B, or D grade or whatever the nomenclature was at the time, with highest price for A and lowest price for D.

What happened what the Commodity Board inspectors would take BRIBES from the farmers who presented "Grade D" beans, and record it as Grade B, thus giving the farmer a higher price than deserved. I'm sure you can follow all the trail of CORRUPTION & CONSEQUENCES that flowed from this. For whatever it's worth, the REAL REASON that Brazil, EU and others claim Nigerian products are below standard is to protect their domestic producers from competition. That's all, the EU in particular is a protectionist project and that is why it's economy is doesn't grown much and is not as innovative as the USA. The solution for Nigeria is to grow it's own consumer market using free market principles. There's no reason Nigerians can't prosper by selling to themselves and as they get better, the world will have to come begging to buy.

Another aspect of the Commodity Boards was their role as SOLE BUYER, no farmer could sell their produce to ANY OTHER PERSON or ENTITY except the Board, which also set the price. So the government would make money by setting a price of $100 per bag of cocoa and then export it to Europe at the world price of $300, earning the government a profit of $200. This was basic ROBBERY of the farmers by government. And of course many farmers reacted by SMUGGLING their cocoa to Benin or Ivory Coast to sell at world prices.

When Muhammadu Buhari was military President in 1984, he fought smuggling very tenaciously and many cocoa farmers went to prison for the crime of trying to sell their own produce to whomsoever they wished! That's ECONOMIC TYRANNY defined.

In case you didn't know, even though Bola Tinubu has been campaigning for Commodity Boards for at least 7 years now that I can recall, President Buhari started the process very recently, I think he couldn't go for the full thing because the National Assembly didn't pass a law -

https://punchng.com/fg-bans-foreign-firms-direct-dealing-with-farmers/

Read the article and weep. It's very, very bad. At the very least, these policies will create huge avenues for corruption, same as with all the other subsidized and government controlled sectors like university education, fuel, forex and whatever else. Another thing that ALWAYS comes from government control is SCARCITY. This won't be scarcity of FUEL or University education, this is gonna be scarcity of FOOD, as in this might result in FAMINE.

I only argue about what I know. I've been nervous that this policy will come and now it's here. This is going to be bad....very bad.

Good Luck to Nigerians!

helinues:
Back to farming. We can produce our local foods in abundance and still export.

I am still wondering why we are still importing ordinary fish and turkey when we can start the production here

adebayo987:
What surprises me is that someone will pluck orange from her backyard and sell at very high price, siting how she was sold at very high price too. The thing is, Nigerians are very greedy. You can see that in fuel stations anytime they sense a hike. This may not work but it is a great thing to do at this point in time. Let him run a social economy like China where the government regulates the price of every single thing sold within China but do not regulate export products. Nigeria needs a social economic system at this moment so that we can know what actually costs high or low.

ahaz:
This is a president talking nit one hopeless jihadist a personified olodo who came to power with Nepa bill as certificate and appointed his fellow dance as ministers.
With this move something tangible must be recorded in the next harvest season.

blamingthedevil:
https://www.channelstv.com/2023/07/13/breaking-tinubu-declares-state-of-emergency-on-food-security/

MS247:
Fulani herdsmen better have sense

Tinubu made a NorthCentral man Chief of Army Staff for a reason

DonroxyII:
North Central is the Food Basket of the Nation .. & The Pillars of Nigerian Stability ....

North Central is the Stomach of Nigeria !

Southern Nigeria is Legs On Which Nigeria stands ...

Core North is the Two Arms-Hands of Nigeria ..

Abuja is the Head & The Brain Box !

If Nigeria were to Be Human !

XerXers:
Chief of Army staff is from the coward region that lost Ilorin to fulani

grandstar:
Due to my free market leanings, I don't feel too good about this.

"Food security" usually entails the country achieves "self sufficiency" in food it has no comparative advantage in like rice. This will mean the citizenry pay more for rice than it otherwise should. Since the primary cause of hunger isn't a lack of food but a lack of money, higher food prices does not help the poor.

Rather government should focus on food the nation has comparative advantage in and liberalizes imports of the others.

If the attention given to rice over the past 10 years was applied to foods the nation has comparative advantage in, I won't be surprised if earnings from food exports touch $10bn. Shea butter alone can earn the country $2bn. Cashew over $1bn and the list goes on.

grandstar:
Mexico has banned the importation of hibiscus plants from from Nigeria. Do you know why? Poor quality.

In the olden days when the country was very reliant on agric exports for forex earnings, the commodity boards ensured that quality of the produce were of high quality.

That is just one reason.

Whether the way they were structured then is practical today is another matter.

I personally speaking am not a fan of food self-sufficiency. It sounds magnificent on paper but it is a nightmare in practice.

Yes, why should we import food we can grow here? We should be self sufficient in it. We should also export it.

The arguments sound tasty the reality is different.

Over the past decade or so, the federal government has pumped untold billions into making Nigeria self sufficient in rice.

One would say the progress has been impressive. But what if the government decides to lift the 'ban' on rice imports? The country will be flooded with cheap rice and national production would collapse. Why? Because the country lacks comparative advantage in rice production.

Nigeria should instead focus on food it has comparative advantage in and liberalize import of food.

The primary cause of hunger isn't a lack of food. It is a lack of money. I have always wondered how making food or rice more expensive than it should actually help the poor?