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Home Agriculture Nigerians call on government to address rising cost of food items, cooking gas

Nigerians call on government to address rising cost of food items, cooking gas

by Editor lll
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Nigerians in the South-West zone have expressed their dissatisfaction with the rising cost of food and cooking gas, urging the federal government to intervene quickly and fix the situation.

They stated that the cost of food and cooking gas had risen beyond the grasp of the masses in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Kwara, Osun, Oyo, and Ogun.

They did, however, suggest possible solutions to the problem, which they labeled as troubling, in their submissions.

Dr. Olufemi Oladunni, Executive Director of the Agriculture and Rural Management Training Institute (ARMTI), urged Nigerians to take up farming as a means of reducing the high cost of living in the country.

Oladunni advised the government to encourage more Nigerians to go into farming by subsidising agricultural inputs and ensure that only qualitative and standard inputs were available in the markets for farmers to buy.He said that ARMTI had been engaging in the training of youths in various areas of agribusiness to make them, not only self-employed, but employers of labour.

According to him, beneficiaries also enjoyed starter packs, valued at N200,000, to enable them to start their own businesses.Oladunni, calling for improved security situation, said that many farmers had been displaced and unable to go to their farms due to the challenge of insecurity in the country.

Also, Prof. Olubunmi Omotesho of the Department of Agricultural Economics and Farm Management, University of Ilorin, urged government to put in place machinery to ensure that small scale farmers have access to agricultural resources, markets, land, finance, infrastructure and technologies.

Explaining that approach to economic development must be modern, focussed and in tune with global trends, he called for social security schemes for farmers and agricultural product protection policies.

“There should also be provision of credit facilities to small scale farmers and incentives for agricultural financial institutions among others,” Omotesho said.

Commenting, Mrs Bolanle Bamidele, decried the rising cost of foodstuffs and cooking gas, saying that it had kept reducing their profit margin.

Bamidele, who sells beans and noodles, told NAN that a cooking gas of 3kg, formerly sold at N1,000, is now N1,950 at 650 per kg.

According to her, both beans and noodles, in addition to the ingredients used in preparing them, have become too expensive.

”Since I was born, I have never bought beans at the price we are buying now. The prices of noodles, groundnut oil and pepper are nothing to write home about, either.

”I just pray that everything gets better, because we are just selling now to keep body and soul together, not that it is profitable again,” Bamidele said.

Another food seller, who simply identified herself as Mummy Semilanu, said that her customers had reduced greatly.

“They have been complaining of not getting enough food served with their hard-earned money,” she said.

NAN

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