Every day, Nigerians continue to think the reason for the high cost of food items is petrol subsidy removal. But farmers know better and are saying something different.
At the beginning of the year in Nigeria, there was Naira scarcity and farmers were forced to sell off their farm produce at ridiculous amounts.
All they wanted was any cash available to survive since buyers could not access cash.
This was typically what played out around the festive season of 2022 when the Naira was redesigned, and Nigerians could not access cash.
You see, there are many lessons that we can all learn from the Bible since there’s not much difference between what is happening now and back then.
One of the stories in the Bible we can learn from is that of Joseph In Egypt. How the young Jewish boy helped Egypt survive seven years of famine.
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As of today, many farmers are experiencing bankruptcy due to the Naira redesign policy introduced by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The purpose of the Naira re-design policy was to end the use of old Naira notes while introducing newly printed notes.
This Naira redesign plan ran from December 15, 2022, to early February 2023. Indeed, it forced Nigerians to deposit their old notes with the banks.
Confusion And Anxiety
So, Nigerians made deposits at the banks. However, they were rudely shocked that there were no new Naira notes to withdraw.
This generated a huge level of confusion and anxiety. People were left without any means of survival after dropping what they had with the banks.
A lot of families suffered during this period and farmers were not left out of the experience.
According to the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Sen Abubakar Kyari, farmers were impoverished by insecurity and the Naira re-design policy.
He said the Naira redesign policy was one of the factors that led to severe food security in Nigeria.
This is because farmers have not overcome the losses incurred during that period.
Kyari brought this up during the budget defense session before the joint committee chaired by Sen. Saliu Mustapha.
The Agric Minister said the focus of the 2024 budgetary proposals for the sector is to achieve food security.
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“The cash crunch caused by the Naira redesign, made most of the farmers sell their farm produce at giveaway price for survival. Buyers couldn’t access cash to buy the produce from them.
“The policy which coincided with harvest season, left the farmers empty financially,” he said.
They (the farmers) are blaming their bankrupt situation and inability to produce enough food for Nigerians on the Naira redesign policy.
