Economist Dr. Peter Terkper has urged the government to adopt targeted policies to tackle food inflation, which contributes significantly to overall price increases.
While inflation has dropped from its peak of over 54% to around 20%, Dr. Terkper pointed out that many consumers are still struggling due to the ongoing rise in food prices.
He also highlighted transportation as a critical challenge in the food supply chain.
To address these issues, Dr. Terkper called for improved agricultural interventions, such as buffer stock programs and better warehousing systems, to help make food more affordable and stabilize inflation.
“Government must bring out a policy that will encourage abundance of food, that is to see why food cost keep rising. There is a challenge of transport, and that is one of the biggest elements in a food value chain. Because food is in abundance in rural areas, but transporting it to the city is a major challenge. And so if that is addressed, then it’s going to help,”
“The government has a lot of systems in place in terms of buffer stock systems and warehousing systems that can be used to store this food and be able to cut it to the centres that will help. And so then you talk of inflation, even though currently we’ve seen that it has actually gone down from where we were at some 54+ levels, and then if we are now in the twenties, then we say we are going down, but it’s still high.”
Dr. Terkper added, “The government talked about improving the agricultural sector, and so we are hoping that a lot will be done in that aspect because that is something that will affect the larger uplift. When you have food inflation curtailed, you have addressed a lot of problems because everybody will eat whether you are rich or poor; you will eat.
And so when this is addressed, it will go a long way to help.”
