Nigeria's central bank has begun directly financing farms to alleviate the country's food crisis caused by the events in Ukraine and sanctions imposed by Western nations against Russia, the Nigerian television channel Arise reported on Friday.
"The Central Bank of Nigeria has developed a strategy to contain grain prices, which have started increasing with the current crisis in Ukraine," it quoted Central Bank Governor Godwin Emefiele as saying. The central bank has begun financing work on 600,000 hectares to increase corn production. Emefiele said large funds are directly allocated to farms.
"Our goal is to help farmers increase their 2022 crop by providing them with financial resources to buy new equipment and advanced technology," said Philip Yila Yusuf, head of finance development at the central bank. - "The emergency measures are taken based on the situation in the world grain market, where we can expect a reduction in supplies from Russia and Ukraine, as well as from Argentina and Brazil, where the grain harvest, including corn, was affected by drought." Cornmeal and corn products are the staple food of the poorest people in Nigeria and Africa as a whole.
In addition to direct financing of farms by the central bank, Nigerian authorities are now forced to use strategic government reserves to stabilize the national grain market. For example, large deliveries of corn have been made to the country's livestock farms to preserve livestock numbers.
The rapid rise in the price of wheat, corn, sunflower oil and fuel, which began in late February, has put millions of Nigerians on the brink of starvation, said the day before the head of the international charity and humanitarian organization Oxfam in Nigeria, Vincent Ahonsi. He said that under the current conditions, a growing number of Nigerians can no longer buy bread and a number of other basic products.
GSV "Russia - Islamic world"
Photo: Creative Commons
Based on materials from TASS