Abuja to discourage food imports

President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government is taking steps to check massive food imports in order to encourage local farmers, a local newspaper reported a presidential adviser as saying on Wednesday. ‘The Comet’ Lagos-based daily quoted the special adviser to the president on food security, Ango Abdullahi, as saying that the government’s recent decision to increase tariffs on food imports, from 25 percent to 75 percent, was aimed at encouraging consumption of locally grown food. “If you produce something you can’t sell, you’re not going to produce again. So if our farmers are having difficulty in selling their produce like rice, maize and whatever, because there is mass importation of those products from outside the country, you are killing the incentive of our farmers,” Abdullahi was quoted as saying. Last year Obasanjo banned the consumption of foreign food items at the presidency and government functions to demonstrate his encouragement of consumption of locally grown foods.