Fakoyejo OlalekanDue to the Naira redesign policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Nigerian farmers lost N30 billion as they struggled with the scarcity of cash.
This was revealed by the President of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria, Kabir Ibrahim, in a report on Wednesday, 30 March 2023. The group said the Naira redesign policy was a disadvantage to the agricultural sector.
Ibrahim said producers of agro-commodities, such as the poultry sector, suffered significant losses, and some farmers had to trade with crops due to the scarcity of N200, N500 and N1,000 notes, taking Nigeria back to the primitive age.
“The policy caused so many hiccups, a lot of poultry farmers have over 10,000 crates of eggs that are unsold due to the cash crunch. However, we hope that the recent decision of CBN to release cash to banks would ameliorate the concerns.
“The losses were not only incurred by egg producers. The producers of vegetables, grains and almost all facets of the sector were affected. Some farmers could only feed through trade by barter. That is how bad the situation is in some remote areas.
“Vegetable farmers who want grains, exchange their vegetables for the grains. Also, farmers of grains exchange their products for some other crops, all in a bid to survive the hardship that was caused by the lack of cash for several months,” Ibrahim told Punch.
He said the Naira redesign policy was a very painful decision, adding: “We’ve recorded loss of business, revenue, products, commodities, etc. I was the president of poultry farmers for five years and I know and work with the various associations and members. From findings gathered by members and groups, it was discovered that farmers in Nigeria lost about N30bn.
“Poultry farmers are complaining because they can’t see maize to buy. This is because most farmers selling the maize are not accepting payments through bank transfers, and this is causing problem. Some people lost their birds because of hunger, and other birds did not perform optimally due to lack of food to eat.
“So in monetary terms, farmers across the country lost about N30bn, based on our findings and scientific measures adopted to determine this. And you’ll agree with me that this is a humongous loss being suffered by peasant farmers.”
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