It was only a matter of time for the alarming upswing in inflation rate, which jumped from 17.71 per cent in June to 18.6 per cent in July, 2022,affecting the prices of foods and basic necessities in Nigeria to extrapolate into the on-going downing of tools by the Association of Master Bakers and Caterers of Nigeria (AMBCN). But that is only part of the frightening food insecurity challenge that Nigerians have to grapple with.
Bread as a staple food is made of a baked mixture of flour, water, yeast and salt. Other ingredients include fat, emulsifying agents and sugar which serve as optional bread improvers. The bread then dries less quickly and tastes fresh much longer. The aerated structure of the bread is achieved through the carbon dioxide production of the yeast due to fermentation process. That also comes up during the leavening and the start of the baking process. But the costs of these ingredients have soared beyond the reach and profit-making venture of the master bakers.
Worsening the scary situation is the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. Russia happens to be the largest exporter of wheat globally while Ukraine is the fifth exporter of wheat.
Another factor that has stifled the growth of the bakery business in the country is traceable to the lack of sustenance of the wheat-cassava flour composite bread making idea brought into being during the Chief Olusegun Obasanjo-led administration.
In addition, the call by the bread makers and caterers to allow master bakers benefit from the cassava intervention fund which was initiated by the previous administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan but has accrued over the years under the current President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration has not been heeded to.
The fund was aimed at economically empowering bakers to do the needful, but not much has been achieved to practicalise the noble aim. Now the master bakers are groaning under the high cost of ingredients required for bread making!
According to the Chairman of the Kogi State chapter of the association, Chief Gabriel Bamidele Adeniyi and his Edo state counterpart, Benjamin Agbonze the current strike is sequel to a series of daunting challenges confronting the bakery and catering industry in Nigeria without the desired proactive and prompt response by the government.
Adeniyi noted that all efforts made by the association towards remedying them were rebuffed by the government and its agencies. Amongst the reasons listed for the strike include shortage of raw materials, increasing cost of materials, over taxation and levies.
Specifically, he noted that: “Since the ban on importation of flour into the country, no serious effort has been made for home-grown wheat as promised by the government and its relevant agency, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture.
“The Master Bakers have requested for palliative in form of soft loans or subsidy to bakers to enable them to produce quality and affordable quantity bread for mass consumption, which was promised but not fulfilled
On his part, Agbonze listed the incessant increase in prices of baking materials, especially flour and sugar. He fingered that the price of a 50kg bag of flour, a major material for baking, has risen from N15,000 to N29,000 depending on the brand, while a 50kg bag of sugar is now N30,000 as against N18,000 sold a year ago.
On the issue of the intervention fund he stated that: “As we speak, bakers are not getting anything from it and we still contribute to the fund. If they cannot empower us with the fund that has accrued so far, then they should stop collecting it so that the money collected will be used to empower bakers nationwide. At least, it will reduce the prices of bread to a large extent.”
Read also: Bread makers continue strike over rising input cost
What the master bakers want is a conducive environment under which to operate. The flour millers want access to forex, but they go to “the open market to source for forex at a black market rate and this has made the price to go up astronomically”. This, to say the least is an unfortunate development.
One significant issue to resolving this critical issue is for the policy makers to always listen to pieces of advice and act promptly to avert the dangers ahead as highlighted by the experts in the related field.
For instance, a former Executive Director, the Lake Chad Research Institute and Coordinator, Monitoring and Evaluation, CBN Anchor Borrower Programme on Wheat Production, Dr. Oluwasina Gbenga Olabanji, had warned in a media interview in March 2022 on the looming danger of food crisis in the country. Now it is a clear and present danger.
Though the former Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Adesina Akinwumi, now the President of Africa Development Bank (AfDB), actually promoted wheat-cassava composite bread of about 20 per cent inclusion in wheat bread, the proposal could not succeed because Olabanji feels that we have the potential to be self-sufficient in wheat production. He also states that such composite flour has a short shelf life of three to four days compared to whole wheat bread flour that could last for a whole week, if well stored.
The issue of Nigeria having the potential to produce enough wheat for bread making is debatable because even though the number of states that could produce wheat has increased from 12 to 16, there are inherent challenges. These include insecurity, especially in the northern states, lack of access to improved seedlings and inadequate funding.
Amongst the wheat-producing states are Kaduna, Niger and efforts are on to explore more states in the North Central like Benue, Kwara and Kogi. According to Olabanji, wheat production plots are on in thenorthern part of Oyo State, such as Saki and Igbeti, in collaboration with the Institute of Agricultural Research and Training (IAR&T) in Ibadan.
The way forward is for the government to approach the food insecurity issue from a holistic perspective. As an advocate of restructuring one would keep asking that the states/ geo-political zones be allowed to control their natural resources and formulate sustainable agricultural policies along the core competence of what is available to them.
This played out during the First Republic when the North had the original pyramids of groundnut, cotton and thrived on hides and skin. The East benefitted from palm oil and rubber while the West used the revenue from cocoa to galvanize sustainable economic development.
With that, the zones will drive all the agricultural value chains, particularly using the staple foods such as rice, cassava, wheat and maize, instead of the state governors going cap-in-hand to Abuja for the ever dwindling peanuts from the centre that cannot be sustained.
Imports of food items we can produce locally should be discouraged while mechanization of farm produce and boosting processing and preservation with modern technology should be encouraged to drive the agric value chain.
