ActionAid Nigeria has urged governors to build food silos like the federal government to ensure food production and security in the country.

The organisation also tasked them to establish cottage plants that could stimulate massive food production and processing to boost their internally generated revenues.

Azubike Nwokoye, ActionAid’s food and agricultural programme manager, stated this during a one-day stakeholders consultative meeting on Kogi 2023 Agriculture Budget Process and Implementation in Lokoja.

The meeting was organised by the state’s Budget Committee Group (BCG), Small Scale Woman Farmers Organisation in Nigeria (SWOFON), in conjunction with the ministry of agriculture and ActionAid Nigeria.

“If all the 36 states, including FCT, will boldly build up their individual food silos as the federal government and set up various cottage plants in relation to what they produce, there will be massive food production and security,” said the ActionAid official. “There should be a rethink by the government to change the tide as soon as possible, considering the food crisis staring most nations across the world as a result of the Russian-Ukraine war.”

The ActionAid Nigeria representative noted that another dangerous trend “is the inability of the state to comply with the 10 per cent MacArthur Declaration of 2021 in their budget allocations to the agricultural sector.”

According to him, no state in Nigeria has been able to budget N94 billion to the agricultural sector and “released whatever budgeted to the sector to help improve food production.”

He disclosed that N3.5 trillion was what Nigeria suffered as deficit or post-harvest losses.