Eating our Dinner as Breakfast? By Simbo Olorunfemi

Walking into the major Supermarket at the Estate last Saturday, I noticed that the Shelf for Bread was empty. Sighed. That was the primary reason for my visit. I remembered having heard something about a strike by MasterBakers. My mind travelled to Ukraine and Russia. War.

I thought about possible alternatives to Bread. Sighed again. A quick check for the favourite cereals and Biscuits for the kids, turned out only one was available. A check in three other Supermarkets was no different, but was lucky to find one loaf of Bread at one, even if an unfamiliar brand. What alternatives do we have?

Here is what food insecurity looks like, especially in an increasingly interconnected world where happenings in Kiev get to affect developments in Abuja, thousands of kilometres away. A war in Eastern Europe can even trigger an upheaval in West Africa.

As I drove back home, I began to think how we have become so dependent on Wheat, how a lot of what we eat now are either wheat-based or revolves around wheat. A crop we barely produce locally.

Last year, I had done a study on Wheat. I was shocked to see the enormity of the problem we are faced with. We are caught in a ‘wheat trap’, one which I doubt many realise how serious it is. (A full length article on this should be published by Premium Times in a few days).

Think about it, from the Bread, which of course is a staple, to Noodles, Semo, Biscuits, Spaghetti, the whole range of pasta-based products, not to mention all the sweet things from the Bakers and Confectioners. It is no joke.

Even though a variety of wheat was grown in some parts of Nigeria a few centuries back, wheat is not predominantly native to us. What we have for it is an induced or acquired taste from the colonial powers.

It is a mess. Africa is said to spend 30 billion dollars importing food, much of which it has no business importing. Nigeria spent N1. 29 trillion on importation of wheat last year. That is not even as alarming as the exponential growth rate in our consumption. The 2021 figure was a 70% increase over that of 2020 and three times the figure for 2019.

Wheat is the second highest item on our import bill and number one imported food item, with its cousin, sugar coming second. No guessing that importation of Petrol (PMS) is number one on the importation bill.

In a way, it is not difficult to identify where the shoe is pinching us. It is easy to see the link between the freewheeling importation of what we should not be importing is reflecting adversely on the position of our foreign reserves and exchange rate, even compounding our debt portfolio.

Can you imagine what will happen if we manage to knock off N1.29 trillion we spent in 2021 importing wheat from our import bill?

Can you imagine what it will be like if we are able to knock off N425.6 billion we spent in 2021 importing sugar from our import bill?

Can you imagine the relief that can come from knocking off the N6.3 trillion (N4.5 trillion on petrol) we spent importing fuel and lubricants in 2021?

On these 3 items only, we spent close to N8 trillion last year. Federal Government’s total projected revenue for last year was just about same figure.

Can we imagine what success in addressing the importation of fuel, wheat and raw sugar will do for our foreign reserves, exchange rate, free up cheaper funds to bring in machinery for manufacturing, if we discipline ourselves, stop gaming the system and do less with indulgences and luxuries?

Can we imagine the effects this will have on the local economy, in terms of growth and job creation?

We have a food crisis, partly externally induced, but largely self inflicted.

But again, enduring solutions will require some level of consensus on the part of the Elite. Do we want to stick with our acquired tastes? Do we want to continue to import to appease our taste rather than needs? We must take more seriously the quest for a sustainable model around the self-inflicted and externally induced food crisis before it consumes us.

• The article deals more extensively with the ‘wheat trap’ and possible solutions