Farmers seek implementation of commodity boards to check food prices

The All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) has called for the implementation of Commodity Regulatory Boards to address incessant food price increase in the country.

AFAN Southwest/ Lagos State Chairman, Mr Femi Oke, made the call in an interview with newsmen on Thursday in Lagos.

Oke said the implementation of commodity boards would be beneficial for both consumers and local farmers.

“The Commodity Regulatory Board is definitely essential to regulate the price of most of the commodities in the market.

“Even in period of produce glut the commodity regulatory boards are important, the government will always take off the excess produce and decide to assist those farmers, instead of them losing out rightly from the market.

“The commodity regulatory boards if set in place will be a win-win for the farmers and the consumers.

“It will be beneficial if the government enforces the commodity boards, it not only reduce the price inflation but also address food insecurity,” Oke said.

He also noted that previous government had enforced commodity boards and it benefitted the country at the time.

“At least, we have experienced commodity boards during some regimes of past presidents.

“Even in the Lagos State, when Governor Jakande ruled, he set it up and it even reduced the inflation of price of commodities in the market.

“We are calling on the government to set up the boards across the country, it will be beneficial to everybody, not just farmers, but also consumers to make a drop in food inflation,” he said.

On his part, Mr Akin Alabi, agriculture expert and co-founder Corporate Farmers International, said the government cannot regulate price of food commodities when it did not provide interventions to the farmers.

“The government cannot have direct impact on commodity prices if they do not give subsidy inputs to farmers during the cultivation of the crops.

“Commodity regulatory boards can only be effective if and when government provide or set up a lots of interventions, direct interventions to support small farmers.

“As a personal farmer, as an individual stakeholder in the value chain, after putting all my funds, my resources to produce food, governments cannot dictate to me the price I will sell to markets because government did not buy my inputs for me.

“If the government can directly impact inputs from seeds to other inputs directly, then it is even to the aspect of funding, direct funding, then it is easy for government to regulate these prices.

“So, the modalities to ensure the workability of the commodity board is to provide enough funds for farmers, encourage more of cash crop production to increase agricultural export processes,” Alabi said.