 Alright, thanks for staying with us now. The increasing number of attacks on farmers in Nigeria is leading to people being forced to leave their homes, disruptions to market and people losing their livelihoods. Now, according to Nigeria's security tracker, armed groups killed more than 128 farmers and kidnapped 37 others across Nigeria between January and June 2023. In June alone, 19 farmers were killed by non-state armed groups in Borno State in Nigeria, Northern Nigeria. Now, the food insecurity in Nigeria has been severely affected or the food availability has been severely affected by violent conflicts in recent years, including the Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast, armed banditry in the northwest, where there have been several attacks and raiding of villages, stealing livestock and food and killing and displacing farmers. There are farmer heather clashes in the northwest and other parts of the country and separatist agitation in the southeast. Now, these conflicts have made it difficult for farmers to produce food and for people to access food. As a result, millions of Nigerians are facing food insecurity and this is a huge problem, especially with the current economic situation in Nigeria. So tonight we're asking how can we curb food insecurity? How can we make food to become more available in Nigeria? Please let's hear what you have to say. Remember to join the conversation, send us an SMS or WhatsApp to 08180384663. Why so ladies? I mean, this is an interesting conversation. First, because we are farmers. I kind of like have an idea what is going on. Do you understand when it comes to the farming area of like growing of the crop? So if you're not dealing with locals, right, you're dealing with what's it called, herders coming into your farm. If you're not dealing with that, you're dealing with, would I call it zero or little access to your farmland based on, you know, bad, very, very bad roads that you have to them now deal with what's it called construction of that road. You're not dealing with that. You're dealing with breaking down the constant breaking down of your equipment. So every day you're finding yourself going again to your technical people to help repair either your tractors or even your machines and whatever. If that is not the case, you're having issues with workers, right? You have people that are not willing to work. You have, you now have to import workers from maybe nearby Benna Republic and all of those things. Like literally, right? If you want to look at farming, like in terms of like growing the crop, there is a plethora of challenges that you're not talking about seedlings that are so expensive, right? Then by the time you're done with the seedlings, you now have to buy very expensive fertilizers, very expensive insecticide to keep the pests out of those crops so that they can grow well and you can get good yields. Then when you're done with that, harvesting it, you know, you are not dealing with, oh, the crop is there. Nobody's buying it. Then that is like a major loss and all of that. So like, they are just a myriad of problems, right? So I don't know how if we say we want to curb food insecurity in Nigeria, you know. First of all, why are we having insecurity in Nigeria? I've just said this now from the farmer's perspective. Of course, what we're talking about, when I was giving the intro, there's the insecurity part, which is very major. Do you understand? And, you know, there's also the problem of our, the inflation and the devaluation of our Naira and all of that that is also impacting because the seedling I would have bought for, say, 20,000 Naira. I'm having to buy that same seedling, that same quantity, for almost like 100,000 Naira. Does it make any sense? And it's the same yield. It's not like the yield is going to be any different. So let me hear your thoughts. Okay, so sorry, I'm sorry. So for me, first of all, food is life. Food is, I like this mantra that says that leave no one behind when it comes to food. I think the world is too blessed with resources and especially a country like Nigeria that hunger really should not be a major problem. But like you rightly said, all the problems that you have highlighted are real issues. And unfortunately, most of the food that we eat and even exports are from the northern part of Nigeria. And the northern part of the country has been the worst heat, you know, they've been the worst casualties when it comes to terrorism. Again, I would also want to speak about the investments we put in agriculture in Nigeria for a country with a kind of population that we have. I think we need to invest more in agriculture. Agriculture is not just about farming. It's the whole value chain. We need to critically look at the value chain from financing to education to seedlings to harvesting to fair trade practices. Because that's very, very important. If you go to Benway State, it's crazy because I was talking to someone from Benway State. Benway State is supposed to be like one of the richest states in this country because they're the food baskets of the nation. But Benway State is unfortunately one of the poorest in this country. Now, why is Benway State that poor? It is because, I mean, they grow the food, they plant the food, but they have zero knowledge about the practices of how to, that is a business side to agriculture. And we need, we can't leave it to people who are not very educated if we want to grow as a nation. We need to bring in a lot of, a lot of expertise. You know, it can just be for the selected few. We can't, we can't say agriculture needs to be as popular as entertainment. As tech. Exactly. As banking and finance. Exactly. It needs to be that. It has to have more corporate players. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. So if we find the farmers who are doing all the work, who are not very well versed in modern ways to increase yield, to have a better harvest, you know, to do more, to diversify, then food will always, we would always have food insecurity in the country. You understand? Because again, they will now be at the mercy of terrorism, of not enough workforce to work in that sector. They would be at the mercy of, I mean, economic inflation and all that. And again, it will come back to the consumers, you and I. Because again, I mean, the market forces would also determine the price of food. If food is not available, it is only going to be for people who can regularly afford it. And that means that people are at the very low end. And of course, when there is no food, there's poverty. When there's no poverty, there's violence. And it goes on and on, you know, so. I'm hearing your thoughts. Well, Bill Gates made a prediction in what is he called in a couple of years, maybe 10 years or 15 years from now, there's going to be like food scarcity. And so I was checking globally, what is the major cause of food insecurity? And one of the top three on the list is climate change and global warming, scarcity of land for farming, and then inadequate supply of water for irrigation. There are other things, poverty, technological barriers, but the point I'm getting to is, among these top lists, climate change, scarcity of land, inadequate supply of water for irrigation. Nigeria doesn't have an issue with that. Nigeria is so blessed with a predictable weather such that, you know, within this month, so at least within March till September, we have rainfall. Within November to maybe March, there is like dry season, right? And so I would say that from my perspective, or from what I've studied and observed, that one of the reasons for the looming of persistent food insecurity in Nigeria is the fact that we don't have a good value system or appreciation system, right? And here is what I'm saying here. Like you rightly said, food is so important, like more important than tech, even though that tech helps us to like maximize food production, right? But food is so important that we don't we don't reward people who put in that effort to provide because if people, if we Nigerians actually invested way more value in food and agriculture than we did in politics or entertainment, then we would know that if there is insecurity, or if there is terrorist attacks or kidnappings going on in those major places that we know that our food is coming from, we should prioritize it. If in Benua, they're having flooding, they're having bad roads, or they're having a low cost economic crisis, we should know. Okay, food, no matter what is going on, food and shelter, food clothing, shelter, those are like the top three basic human needs, right? And I think topping the chart is food because it can wear one cloak for like 50 days, but you can't not eat for 10 days. That's literally killing yourself, right? And so if we would learn, we as individuals and the government as well would learn to prioritize and value where this food is coming from and say, okay, on our list of the budget for this year, what are the major food producers in this country? What are their problems? Let's fix it. And then by the time you fix it, like there are other states in Nigeria, like there are some eastern states that they don't prioritize farming, they just do subsistence farming just for me, myself, and I, but by the time they look and see, oh, there's development coming in, like these people have been prioritized, then all that massive land that they have that they're waiting to build 50 acre of their father's house, so they can have events in it. They can say, okay, no, seriously, have you seen both people build houses? I saw one house when I went to Mama's village. It is the whole of Italy, right? From the beginning to the end. I said, one human being. You don't need all that. You just leave one house, a compound to have your events, and then the remaining one, you can turn it into a farmer. If you don't want to be the farmer, you can lease it out, right? So when people see that there is actually a reward coming from agriculture, then it would encourage people, and it would even encourage foreign investors. So I like what you said, Sansi. So let me try to attempt, because I know that, you see, there has been a lot of serious talk about, what's it called, a Greek, and I know that setting state governments are actually taking it seriously. But you see, our major problem, first of all, we have to deal with the mind part of this issue, which is, even when I was watching Idris Elba's gold new documentary that he has on YouTube, a fantastic documentary by the way, I recommend for everyone to watch it. How they urge South Africans to drop their hose and their whatever, and go and start doing mining. It's the same thing in Nigeria. We were known for our granite pyramids. We were known for agriculture. So cutting, we were known for agriculture, but we took up all of those things, dumped them on the site for oil. So if we're told that we need to solve this problem, we need to now do reverse engineering. Go back to the basics. But you see, for us people to do that, we must now find it. I like the what you said about being attractive, right? We must find the attractiveness in it to be able to now encourage more people to come into that sector. And that's why when Joella was talking about corporate engagement, we need those kinds of engagement. We can't have just petty people just saying they are farmers. No, people that have like real time business sense, you know, come into the sector. Because now, like you rightly said, those top three problems, they are not our problem. Can we change it literally because our weather is changing, right? Things are changing. The time you're expecting rain, you do not see rain, it's coming through. But at least it's still a bit manageable compared to parts of the world that the issues with flood. Lagos State Government did something at some point where they partnered with Kirby State Government. That was where the Lake Rice came. So Lagos and Kirby made Lake, LA and KE made Lake Rice. And for me, I felt that that was a beautiful partnership. Because guess what? They have to farm that way to produce en masse. Lagos has the capacity to commercialize it. So imagine if we start to have those kinds of interstate partnership. You see, it is this problem of I go every month, I walk home and I don't work at a federal location. You will never think outside of the box. So government, state governments, even with their arable lands that they have, they are not thinking agriculture. Even for people that have farm lands, like for us now, we have hectares of land, right? To get Sea of O. Jealous and you, as a farmer, if you are farming and it is confirmed that you're farming, your Sea of O is supposed to be free. You know what I say so? If they give you free Sea of O, then they are serious about you taking that to your farm business to the next level. But that Sea of O might be tied to a condition that you must mention that you maintain farming. It is only with a Sea of O and all of those things that you can now use those properties as collateral to be able to access financing. For us to be able to expand the land and expand the produce and expand all of those production, you don't need to have external funding. You cannot do small, small funding. So there is a lot that goes into food security, right? And right now in our country, it's just like, let's picture it now. We are in the days of when Joseph was inside DJ, when they told him that farming is coming. That's what Bill Gates wanted. You understand? So what are we doing as a government? We're not even trying. Now I'm hearing, you are telling us now that he's mopping up seedlings and all of those things, right? All of these things are happening for people that are thinking, for people that are looking at it and seeing the future, that if we do not position ourselves, do you understand? But our government was still sleeping. Look at Lagos Ibardo Expressway. Look at Ibardo. Let me tell you, when I went to Amsterdam for a conference, I then decided to take a bus from Amsterdam to Paris before now taking a train to south of France. Do you know that between Amsterdam and Paris, San Si, it's just land upon like farm lands, stretch. See gigantic windmills. Do you understand? Gigantic windmills. You will see the one that are doing the crop farming, the one that is on all of that there. This is our lake. You, they talk about kidnappers. Is it not inside those bushes that kidnappers are hiding? If we clear up all of those lands and people actually start to, you know, farm in all our forests that we have, we will not be. So when the world is complaining, we will be selling food to the world. Sorry to get you, but on the other hand, I think I would like to, like the same example you gave about, what was the place you went to? Amsterdam. Amsterdam. Yes. I would say that when I travel, which you are not, you've been, you lived in the north. When I'm driving through the north, maybe like from Kaduna to Zare, they are farm lands. Farm lands. I know it's not enough, but I have to commend the northerners. You at least get to something. You'll see like this massive lands and you see, or whether you're taking the train or whatever, you'll see they are putting that land to good use. You see people cultivating their lands and just hectares of cornfields, right? But I wish Lagos would imitate that. Because in the South West, South West, South South, there's a lot of vacant lands and bushes. We don't need well conserved nature. Even if you are farming, the tree is still nature conservation. So we need to like maximize those lands. Let's take a break, right? When we come back from that break, we'll continue the conversation and take your comments. Stay with us over right back. All right. Thanks for staying with us now. If you just tuned in, we're having a conversation around food insecurity. We're asking how do we curb it? Now, please let's hear what you have to say. Remember, you can join the conversation, send us an SMS or WhatsApp to the 1-803-4663. Okay. So, Dee, you wanted to say something? Yes. So, I like, I mean, the thoughts around the Northern people, you know, doing the best that they can. But you see, that's one step. So, for it to be successful and sustainable, then we must, as not just individuals, corporate organizations, business-oriented people, and then the government, we must look to the other value chain, the other, you know, parts of it. So, again, you talked about land. I would expect that we need to start looking at land reforms, you understand, you know, even in terms of 10-year land, land tenure reforms. But when the farmer farms, they've invested so much in farming, they know they're going to harvest. Where does it go? How does the farmer transport? So, we need to look at infrastructure. Infrastructure plays a huge role. You can't put food, perishable items, to move from the North to the South, three days. I mean, you talk about insurance, you talk about a whole lot. So, the farmer bears the loss. Do you understand? So, they don't have the power to even say, okay, you know what, for my next planting cycle, I have the funds to do this, unless people step in. So, I mean, why are we not looking at train systems? Why are we not looking at infrastructure in such a way that we're able to distribute food across the nation? And no, we is, exactly, because by then, the farmer knows I'm not concerned about selling my produce. Let me worry myself about planting. That's the one. See, let me even tell you something here, right, just to add to what you're saying. If the government even took it upon themselves, you know, so you can, you can decide. And I think at some point, Yamio Shibajon, they were talking about it. I'm not just 100 percent sure, but they were talking about building those storage facilities for farmers to be able to, at least if they are done farming, they can, you know, you are sure of the things being preserved and all of that, because the wastage, have you been to K2 markets? I saw it as a high level of, when they were bringing in caravans, caravans, as you see, the wastage. Well, that's even just recent. Like, yes, I saw it, wasn't two weeks ago, it's even last week. We're not even touching the wastage that happened. Then you touched on something very critical, which was the fact that the fair trade, the fair trade is very important that somebody has paid their dues, they don't do hard work, they've watched the plants grow. Then you now come and you are buying those farm produce or peanuts. It is not a known, there should be a standard. Yeah, the priceability. So, no, part of what I learned when I did that online course for emerging markets, right, with Harvard, they touched on the community in India. That community, they were known for milk production, right? The milk, they were, they milked their cows and guess what? In the end, it's only maybe like two buckets. So the two buckets, but the time they will travel, by the time they get to who will buy it and all of that, it has, it's sour. So this man that was just thrown there, he said, what will he do? He now looked and studied. So there were too many, too many things he considered. This distance to go and be, he said, you want to go and be distributing your make, he said, no, no. That one, okay, already they had to put this, a pasteurization center or whatever it is to be able to collect those collection centers from them, from the farmers very close to the farmers. Then they were paying them a standardized wage. Guess what now happened? The farmers were now able to buy better feeds. So the cow that would produce normally maybe two buckets. The cows could produce four, some cows could produce six in a day. So that was more money for the farmers. The farmers were happy. They were able to feed the cow's fat and they were also supplying them. Now look at it, many years down the line, that company is still standing in India. They're not only supplying milk in the whole of India, they're supplying to other parts of the world. I just don't want to mention the brand. Now even the other value chain by products of milk, like the butters and all of that, they have a long list of items. But guess what, their farmers are extremely happy. You see the farmers, the ones that could not even, they bought motorcycles, some of them have bought, the farmers are happy. They're able to educate their children. They even provide them healthcare, schools. It's an entire value chain. So I like the idea that you're thinking holistically. But then for me right now, training might be a stretch because our governments, I don't see them understanding that this rail system is a big deal and they must really prioritize it. Even if they don't solve the road problem, right, without even the trade, D, look at it now. If you normally would take, I mean we used to drive from Kerala to Benin, route three, five hours you're in Benin. But now it would take you forever to get to to where you're going. Now they are kidnapping on the road. So there are so many layers of why this is a big problem. And as long as it continues in length, as our population continues to increase, I mean, they're saying that by 2030, our population will be the second largest population in the world. I just, they say, make whenever is day. It's just so sad because we have the workforce. We have everything. We have everything. And I, the sad thing is we're very, we were reactionary rather than being proactive. Nigeria can comfortably, comfortably feed Africa. What is Africa? I mean, comfortably. Nigeria has like massive. What is Africa? You see, for me, one of the things that I always say, and I'll go back to, I'll go back to politics for a little bit. I like the fact that you always talk about governance. And I think that, let me just say this, for the next election cycle, it is important that we are looking for people that are not just coming to talk about manifestos. If you want to be the governor, let's stop this focus on presidency. Start with your states. You must give a blueprint of what you want to do. First of all, to increase general revenue from your state. Because imagine if all Northern, I don't even know why we're not doing major agriculture in the South here, because there is land. Have you ever gone to Ogun states? Have you seen the amount of land in Ogun states? He shows there. He shows there. You look at whole states. And people are saying they're so poor in this state, but it's dependent on federal government allocation. I can't understand it. Well, this is a question I have. Is there like, I'm not aware of it, and I didn't research it before the show. Is there like a land loan system at work in Nigeria? Yeah. You can't do this land. My friend Barbara, she has an a father farm. So she had started off first of all with plantain and plantains did not really do so well. Okay. And she then moved on to, every time she sees us, she says, why are we buying land? Why are we buying land? You know, but she is actually operating on the lease structure. So they lease the land, and it is, you know, after the harvest and everything, the shares, there's a formula for it. But those options are very important. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying to you that for even the people that have taken, that they painstakingly bought those lands, why don't you give them CO4s? Because you say the CO4s is not because we just want to own the land. It is possible to have the capacity. Yes, it's the capacity to be able to hand it over to BOI, to say, you know what, these are my needs. We want to be able to mount a, let's say maybe we could produce like for us now, we are palm producers. We farm the palm, we also process it all the way to the bottle. Imagine if we could do maybe like a 500 litre or whatever, 1000 litre per day. If we increase their capacity based on the equipment and all of that, we can move that production to like 10,000 litres, right? Sure. We're hearing that they are importing palm oil. It's an insult. Sure. The kind of things that you hear that they import to Nigeria, it's an insult because it's not like we do not have the capacity to be able to do it. So if we really want to get this food and secure it, right, we must first of all understand that certain policies when it comes to our Greek, right, must be scrapped. Do you understand? So that you give some level of leverage. I heard, I mean, I'm not like I heard. I know the government gave out seedlings at some point. They were giving out fertilizers at some point. They were doing all of those tasks to all those like farm communities, the small stakeholder family. I watched the documentary on cloths TV. It was the documentary. I think somebody had done that documentary. I stumbled on it and I was watching it and the lady I think she's a fish farmer. And she was saying that yes, they came, they collected their data, but since then they didn't hear anything from them. So do you understand what I'm saying? When the corruption and like literally if you want to do your corruption, carry on with another sector. That's what I'm saying because you don't understand the looming danger that we have. Do you understand? So she said they came, they took their numbers and this is what they do. They go to all the local communities, collect all the, you know, just to get data. But in turn they get that data, the reason justify, okay, we have 10,000 farmers here in this community, 100,000 farmers in this community, collect, you collect allocations to be able to hand over to those farmers. But it doesn't get to them, you know, in the end it is yourself who are suffering because if this food scarcity comes, because it will come, it's not a function of it, it is when it comes, it will hit everybody. And it is only those that have planned, those that have prepared, those that have gone ahead to say, you know, what, let's have to build, you know, the way like Joseph did, where he did, you know what I'm saying? So that's another thing we need to work on, storage facilities. It's the same thing. So there's a lot that can happen, so even your tomatoes, it doesn't have to go bad. We can convert them, we can add, so this is where technology now comes in, you understand? We can convert all of those things, we don't have to waste them. The amount of waste stages is like literally, when you see food wastage in this country, you almost want to cry because we are talking about the fact that there's no enough food. The homeless see the ones that go to waste. And it's also causing a price hike because if I produce like 100 cucumbers or 100 carrots, and by the time they transport it from the farm to the market place, I realize that 45 is spot. Because I have to cover my costs. So the remaining 55 days, if I was meant to sell it for 10, 10 there, I would end up selling it for 14 there or something. Because that's 40 days, it makes sense. Food security is as important as the security of the nation because it's at the core of the nation. Because Israelite, if you let me speak English, because I want to bring back what we call this, Jackman, what do you call Israelite slavery? See that they all die from Israel. Because they find food, they can't go eat it. But because at that time, they were in favor with government, they can't carry their food. Years later, when government, we don't know them. Because literally, people will migrate to where there is food. So if we do not start to pay attention to this looming danger that will happen, if we don't pay attention to it, what eventually it will mean, it will be that we will go cap in hand begging other nations of the world for food. You don't want to be in that position. And any country that is feeding you. Let's take comments. Do you think that part of the issue is because Nigerian youths are not as interested in... Because they have not made it attractive. It has to be attractive. The narrative now is probably for people who are uneducated people. So the very few people that are in that sector as educated people, young people, they are not... Agriculture is a game of, it's an industry of patience. You need to be patient. But I mean, if we keep selling the idea that... Exactly. So they are looking to us, where in the blink of an eye, let me make my turn. And it means that it must be incentivized to actually get people... And so you must also find patient capital. Yeah. A Greek is not the one that you give a load. Very minimal. Very minimal. So that's what I'm saying. There are so many things. And this is not actually going for too much. There are so many things that the government can put today as policies that you get better players in the industry. Do you understand? Incentivize it like Joella said. Remove all those bottlenecks, remove all those bureaucracies. Do you understand? Yeah. Okay. Let me quickly read this. No country can function optimally without proper organization and structures. Carbine-feeding security in Nigeria can work if a government follow each state or region according to what it can naturally do. Everywhere in the USA, it is not a fan place. The government always encourage each state according to what it is naturally endowed with. In the US, the state of Wisconsin is highest producer of cheese and alcohol. And it is known for that. California area is very good in producing wine and other food crops. And it is known for that. In Nigeria, being made as the food basket of the nation, should be encouraged by the government to produce enough food to feed the nation. This is from Sanctus. Thank you Sanctus. It is known for yam. Yeah, they have really good yam. The best yam. And then the northern part, like they are so good at, like you are, you, it's always considered. I say there's nothing you are looking for in Nigeria. There's no kind of crop you're looking for that we cannot grow. We have no business having this food is not in season. Even in jobs, strawberries. If you see the kinds of strawberries that come, it's very juicy and sweet. So if they pay attention long enough, even the apples, they'll be able to grow it in just because we just ask the weather for it. The strawberries in jobs are so big and cheap. I was like, what? This is not like that. I shopped right for like $1,000. I'm like, no way. We are in 14. Oh, is it the potatoes? I beg. These are not the right. I'm telling you, don't be fed with the 5 Godmen today. We are just begging, please. This food matter, it will concern all of us also. So if there's any way that we can start to think, let's start to, you know, put heads together. And this is real, real problem solving. Not to be seen to be solving the problem. We need to solve the cultural problem that we have in this country. Ah, multi talk finish. Thank you, Sanzi. Thank you dancing to you. Now before we go, please ensure you follow us across all social media platforms that wish you Africa, you can interact with us further, drop a comment. And more importantly, follow all our engagements, like and share, invite your families and friends to watch and follow. If you missed our quotes from Bill Gates, he says, innovations that are guided by small holder farmers adapted to local circumstances and sustainable for the economy and environment will be necessary to ensure, according to Buhari, that food security is the future. We get done, they talk about a Greek. He started with mosquito. He started with mosquito, went to health. No, he started with computer. Went to mosquito, went to health, nice in a Greek. Okay, follow the money. We'll see you guys tomorrow. Get here.