To support the recent federal government declaration of emergency regarding food production and security, former senator Emmanuel Onwe, who represented the Ebonyi Central Senatorial Zone, has urged for the establishment of the proposed Food Intelligence Agency.
During a press conference on his Open Letter to President Bola Tinubu headlined “Declaration of a State of Emergency on Food Security and ‘Commodification of the Naira Using Cassava’: What Can I Do for my Country,” Onwe made the call on Sunday in Enugu.
He pointed out that the country should have been saved from food inflation, hunger, and total population starving by the FIA agency acting on the proclamation of a state of emergency on food security, which should have sparked widespread action in agricultural methods.
In his opinion, this is where the planned Food Intelligence Agency’s function becomes most important.
“A Food Intelligence Agency – the strike squad of food security and food sovereignty – would have played a significant and defining role in investigating, assessing and recording the state of food production, consumption and preservation across Nigeria.
“Such a body would have the capacity to provide actionable intelligence on the threats and prospects of food production so that these recurring and embarrassing emergencies in food availability could be proactively averted.
“The intermittent emergency reaction to food shortages in this country is absolutely embarrassing not just at national but international level,” he stated.
Onwe, a large farmer with more than 300 hectares of cassava farm, stated that “by now crude oil will not be our major foreign exchange earner as a nation” if political focus and resources are diverted to food production for consumption and export.
“Nigeria is now steeped in a culture where politics and politicking suck in every ounce of the national energy. Politics grabs the nation by the jugular and freezes the very lifeblood cursing through the national veins,” he added.
The senator contended that the growing practice of citing “insecurity everywhere” as a justification for farmers not to work on their crops was misleading, noting that there were still insecure areas and zones in the nation.
He asserts that it is accurate to say that both banditry and terrorism have had a significant impact on the overall situation of food availability in this nation as well as the specific fate of farmers in some areas.
But that obstacle is easily surmountable by taking drastic steps to create new spaces for the production of the necessary agricultural products, which would immediately reduce the fear of starvation among our people as well as its potential.
According to President Bola Tinubu, who declared a state of emergency on food security in July 2023, endorsed all matters concerning food and water availability and affordability as vital livelihood items be added within the purview of the National Security Council.
