The Consumer Advocacy and Empowerment Foundation, (CADEF), has said that key factors such as insecurity, middlemen, and multiple taxes are the key drivers of food prices in Nigeria.
The Executive Director of CADEF, Professor Chiso Okafor, stated this at a media briefing following a meeting with the Consumer Protection Commission, (FCCPC), and other stakeholders, in Abuja.
She said “Recently, we had a high-level meeting with the FCCPC and other relevant agencies, including NGOs, and the conversation was around what is going on in Nigeria regarding food and what we are going to do about it and what needs to be done right away.
“Consumer International is an international agency that has partnered with CADEF on fair food prices. They told us to assist them in collecting data on food prices.
She said, in partnership with Consumer International, they embarked on data collection in six states on food prices to ascertain the major causes of high food prices.
“We were able to look into 14 commodities that are produced in Nigeria in Edo, Kano, Benue, Abuja, Lagos, and Enugu states. We collected data from the six states for October, November, December, January, February, and March.”
Explaining further, she said “We collected the data in real-time three times a month and uploaded them in a tool created by Consumer International in partnership with other agencies. The data was collected along the value chain, from farm to middlemen to retailers.
“We were able to present some of our findings, and we found out that in some cases, there was over a 100% price difference between the farmgate and the retail gate within a couple of days.
The group said it also went into the areas with it’s enumerators which was uploaded right from the field for real time results and effectiveness.
“During our conversation, the farmers’ groups that were there talked about the insecurity. Farmers are no longer able to go to their farms and markets because of security challenges.
“Another issue the farmers raised is the issue of middlemen. Because the farmers didn’t know the prices of goods in the market, the middleman could quote them a price, which they would accept.
“Sometimes, the middlemen buy up all the farm produce on credit, go and sale then come back and give them a smaller amount.
According to Professor Okafor, transportation and logistics is also a challenge because some of the products are perishable.
“Farmers want to sell so that they don’t waste. So, the transportation cost is very high for farmers and not stable,” she concludes.
