ABIODUN NEJO writes that high foodstuff prices, which have been a concern for residents of Ekiti State, is being tackled headlong by the present administration in the state
It was for the seriousness of the food inflation in the different communities in Ekiti State including the capital city that the Ewi of Ado Ekiti, Oba Adeyemo Adejugbe, directed slashing of foodstuff prices in markets in his domain.
Worried by the astronomical hike of prices of foodstuffs, Oba Adejugbe, in August, cancelled various traders’ associations in markets in Ado Ekiti to remove their undue control of prices and ensure farmers have direct access to traders.
The traditional ruler ordered traders in the markets not to sell foodstuffs beyond stipulated prices, saying the steps were necessary to regulate the high prices of foods in the state capital.
Other monarchs including the Ogoga of Ikere Ekiti, Oba Adejimi Adu-Alagbado and the Alawe of Ilawe Ekiti, Oba Adebanji Alabi, took similar steps to save residents from the unbearable cut-throat prices of food items in their domains.
Oba Adu-Alagbado, who also that month, expressed concern over the increasing prices of goods at Ikere Ekiti, also announced ban on all traders’ association within the ancient community and university town to remove an unnecessary cause of high prices, saying, “We can’t continue to see our people suffer”.
Also, the Alawe, Oba Alabi, who had in March directed market men and women in his domain to reduce prices of foodstuffs in the community, also in July pleaded with traders and landlords not to see the staff and students of the newly established Federal College of Education in the community as their meal ticket through high rents and prices of foodstuffs.
Food inflation which caught the country unawares earlier this year, dealt citizens a blow and as well kept many people including governors on their toes, came in Ekiti State as an add to the usual cut-throat prices of goods and commodities particularly foodstuff.
With the recent development, prices of food items like garri, yam, potatoes, palm oil, tomato, pepper, rice etc suddenly hit the rooftops and unaffordable to the people particularly the masses in the state.
Although Ekiti is naturally endowed with fertile land and mineral deposits, it remains basically a civil servants’ state despite successive governments’ efforts to encourage farming and as well investment drive.
The presence of many tertiary institutions and commercial entities like banks has made the population particularly in the capital and urban parts continually on the rise, which many say that the market men and women, are cashing on to exploit their customers.
Across the length, breadth of the state, it has been the same story of high prices of commodities including food when compared to what obtains in the neighbouring Ondo, Osun, Kwara and Kogi states.
A student of Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti, Sunday Omopariola, who lamented the high prices of foodstuffs in the state, said that students expend their money which could have served other purposes on food.
Omopariola said, “The irony of the situation is that my parents at Osogbo, the Osun State capital, find it difficult to believe when I tell them what food takes from the money they give me”.
A banker, Bola, who corroborated him, said, “I buy most of my foodstuffs whenever I travel out of the state and stockpile. I don’t find it funny whenever I have to buy some here in Ado Ekiti. Something has to be done about the high food prices here”.
Also speaking, a National Youths Service Corps member, Esther, said, “The prices of foodstuffs are quite expensive here compared to Cross River State where I come from. As corps members, it make things hard for us”.
Meanwhile, the Iyaloja-General of Ikere Ekiti, Chief Iyabo Ojo, said, “The prices of goods including foodstuff in the state are influenced by the high price of petrol and the resultant high transport cost and as well insecurity in the farms”.
The Iyaloja said that the insecurity which reared its head in the state with kidnappings and killings in the farms had negative impact on agriculture as farmers were afraid to go to their farms, thus affecting farm output in the state.
She also bemoaned situation where some moneybags, including Hausa traders were paying ahead to farmers for produce and ferrying them out of the state upon harvest, thus lessening supplies to markets in the state and resultant high prices.
Ojo, who lauded monarchs for the initiative to liberalise the market to bring prices down, added, “As Iyaloja, I am not relenting as well, appealing to garri sellers, tomato, fish, pepper, onion, yam, plantain, cocoyam sellers to apply human face while fixing their prices so that lives can be easy for the people”.
Meanwhile, the State Chairman of Social Democratic Party, Dr Dele Ekunola, who bemoaned the high cost of foodstuff in the state, expressed worries that the prices remained high despite traditional rulers’ order to traders to bring them down as he advised government on the need for price control mechanism.
Ekunola said that the issue of insecurity stemming from kidnappings and activities of herdsmen remained a thread to food availability, saying, “Following the activities of the herdsmen and kidnappers there cannot be food in society.
“People are staying away from the farms, our youths are running away from the farms. Kidnapping is now a lucrative business in Nigeria because of the huge amount they are charging for ransom. This remains a challenge to governments”.
The SDP chairman, who said establishment of Agro Rangers by Ekiti State Governor, Biodun Oyebanji, to man the forests was laudable, said, “If they can manage that successfully, then there will be no problem on food scarcity and insecurity and there will be hope for food production. I will give kudos to them then when I see what they are doing”.
However, Princess Tinuade Ogunbiyi, the Regent of Oke Ako Ekiti, a food production hub erstwhile troubled by herdsmen, said, the governor’s singular action of bringing an investor to establish a farm in the community’s “vast fertile farmlands”, had brought about drastic reduction in the issue of herdsmen.
The regent said, “Since January, we have not been having security issues. Operatives of Rapid Response Squad of the police, men of Agro Marshal, Amotekun operatives and soldiers are now there. We thank the governor for this”.
The Special Adviser to the Governor on Security Matters, Brig. Gen. Ebenezer Ogundana, assured that mechanisms were in place to ensure flocks no longer invade and destroy farms and make a mess of government’s huge investment in agriculture.
Ogundana said that government had set up Farm Settlements across the state in order to address food shortage, saying this is in addition to the Agro-Task Force comprising of security agencies to provide protection for farmlands and farmers and as well identify herders, farmers and the host communities staying on the farm settlements.
Ekiti State Commissioner for Trade, Industry, Investment and Cooperatives, Mrs Tayo Adeola, however, said that the Oyebanji administration was doing a lot to bring down foodstuffs prices by making them available in the markets.
Adeola said, “Prices of foodstuffs in Ekiti are currently influenced by several factors including transportation costs, market demand, the presence of multiple middlemen and as well fluctuations in agricultural production”.
Adeola, who said many cassava farmers abandoned farms following the 2022 post-harvest loss occasioned by inadequate access roads to farmlands and excess supply leading to glut in the market.
She said, “This led to a reduced cultivation of cassava in 2023 leading to reduced supply of cassava in 2024 to processing hubs, impacting the production of garri, which, coupled with persistent high demand, drove prices up as we currently experienced this year.
“Our ministry’s research revealed a substantial presence of middlemen in the cassava, rice, yam, and palm oil markets. These middlemen often provide credit to local farmers, who, in turn, feel pressured to sell their harvests at drastically reduced prices to repay their loans.
“These middlemen, who come from various parts of the country, purchase farm produce at very low prices and then transport them out of Ekiti for resale elsewhere.
“Unfortunately, commodity merchants often buy these same products from the migrant middlemen and bring them back to Ekiti to sell. When transportation costs and profit margins are factored in, these goods end up being sold at significantly inflated prices in our local markets”.
As part of efforts to ensure food security and bring down foodstuff prices, the commissioner said that her ministry had conducted a comprehensive review of the market situation in Ekiti State and identified four key commodities – rice, yam, cassava, and palm oil.
According to her, Ekiti State Government, through the Ministry of Trade in a partnership with the U.S. African Development Foundation, is providing $100,000 in grants to agricultural cooperatives in the state.
She said, “This funding aims to enhance their capacity to produce key commodities like yam, rice, and cassava, and support the establishment and running of cottage industries for processing and value addition”.
The commissioner said, “In August 2024, 10 cooperative societies in Ekiti State received a first tranche payment of N45m for this initiative, which seeks to boost food production through clustered farming practices, addressing food insecurity and rising food prices.
“We have also set up a N1bn Cooperative Support Fund for Cooperatives in Agricultural Production and Processing. The fund can be accessed at 10 per cent per annum interest rate by farmer groups and associations”.
She disclosed that her ministry was collaborating with the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security to offer up to a 50 per cent subsidy on land clearing and farm inputs as part of a Cluster Farming initiative.
Adeola said, “Focusing on increased food production alone will not address the high food prices, because as we speak, if most of the food we produce in Ekiti are not carted away from the state, we should not have high food prices”.
For solution, she said that the Ministry of Trade and its Agriculture counterpart are “setting up aggregation centres whereby the government can offtake farm produce when the commodities are in season, store and sell when the commodities are off season at below market rates to our citizens to dampen the effect of high food prices in the state”.
Adeola stressed that in a bid to create markets alongside food production, her ministry, in collaboration with the Ministry of Regional Development, Bureau of Local Content and Ministry of Agriculture are establishing farmers’ markets in the three senatorial districts of the state in a first phase initiative.
She said, “These markets will provide essential market access for local farmers. Currently, major markets in Ekiti operate on a traditional five-day cycle. The ministry is working to transition to a daily trading system in all major markets.
“Our research shows that commodity prices drop on market days only to spike again the following day due to supply imbalances. During this transition, we will engage stakeholders to allocate slots to various farmers and merchants, ensuring a steady supply of commodities to meet growing market demand.
“Furthermore, our ministry has established a Price Control Committee to monitor and regulate the prices of goods in the state, involving key stakeholders like the organized private sector, Iyalojas, Iyalajes, and others,” the commissioner said.
Ekiti State Rural Access and Agricultural Marketing Project Coordinator, Sunday Adunmo, said that already, attention is being given to rural roads with the commencement of construction of farmland roads by RAAMP.
Adunmo said while awarding N17.2b contracts for 13 rural roads that good rural roads play vital roles in enhancing food production and averting hunger and poverty.
The RAAMP coordinator, who said that contracts for more rural roads were in the pipeline, described it as “a significant milestone in our journey to improve agricultural infrastructure, enhance rural connectivity and boost food production in Ekiti State.
The Commissioner for Agriculture, Mr Ebenezer Boluwade, who said reports showed that farmers face 45 per cent of post-harvest losses due to bad roads, said the 13 rural roads project would prevent such, apart from the multiplier effects.
Oyebanji, on completion of the first two years, said that “the next two years is to ensure that we scale up our intervention in agriculture”, adding that he would step up his intervention in security as part of condition for the farming efforts to be successful.
The governor, “Next year budget is going to focus on welfare and agriculture. The time has come for us to feed our people. My target for next year is to grow enough food to feed Ekiti people. We will de-risk the agricultural value chain by scaling up security, provide electricity and rehabilitate roads to farms”.
He said that he was collaborating with investors in agribusiness and young farmers, adding, “Few months ago, we flagged off the ‘bring back our youths into agriculture’ programme and I believe strongly that the only way to prosperity is productivity and bring our youths back to work, government has to provide the platforms for them.
“We partnered with our people and YSJ, a private sector agriculture company to work out a strategy of bring back our youths to agriculture where government cleared land for them free of charge, subsidized inputs by 50 per cent.
“We asked our youths to register and we trained them in partnership with a private sector. We started with 930 youths in six clusters across the state and cumulatively they have cultivated more than 2,000 hectares of all sort of crops ranging from maize to cassava to yam to beans to soya, to vegetables among others”.
Oyebanji said that part of the reason for insufficient food and high foodstuff prices are “some people gave our farmers money to plant for them and they come to the state to park our yams and other produce upon harvest.
“That is a challenge we still need to confront, our experiment with youths is working, but as I speak to you, there are people who are ready to put down their money to offtake, but I don’t want those products to be taken outside Ekiti State. Our plan is to offtake, keep and release to the market next year”.
The governor, who said that in addition to efforts to improve security in the communities and forests which are yielding results, “opening up of more land for commercial farming has reduced the incidence of kidnappings and other forms of criminal activities particularly in the Ikole axis of the state.
Oyebanji, who said the President Bola Tinubu provided support to the state when he informed him (Tinubu) that Ekiti would get involved in agriculture, said, “We will invest it in agriculture. As a government, we need to provide the platform for people to exhibit their potentials and this is what we have done.”