According to Minister of Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbeh, the Federal Government has taken some steps which are expected to lower the prices of food items in the country. This he revealed at a Federal Executive Council meeting.
Last week, the Council put together a task force to advise the government on steps to take to combat the rapid rise of cost of food items across the country. Ogbeh claimed the recently instituted task force submitted an interim report to the council yesterday, adding that the committee had identified high cost of transportation to be the major reason for exceeding food prices.
Ogbeh cited the increase in diesel prices as the major reason for the rise in food prices. The minister said the government had, therefore, decided to “start using railway wagons to transport food items.”
“We will also work with state governments to reduce delays experienced by trucks along the roads through all sorts of taxes by local governments,” he said.
Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry, Enelamah who took the floor after Ogbeh mentioned that the FEC also passed measures to bring in investment and boost local production of some essential commodities, such as tomatoes. He said:
‘’Council approved a set of measures to boost production and attract investment into the Nigerian tomato sub-sector. This is a sector that has lots of farmers. In a state like Kano alone, there are 75,000 farmers and so it is important to encourage them.
“So we approved a set of measures to encourage them both in local production as well as attract more investment into tomato farming and processing.
“These measures will include things we are doing to make sure we plant tomato round the year; things like green house equipment, making sure that they can come in without any barriers or duties.
‘’They also include the use of both tariff and non-tariff measures to address the issues Nigerians are most concerned about, which is the issue of dumping, issues around quality and the standards of what we consume.’’
Source: Vanguard