Bumper Harvest This December ‘ll Crash Price Of Food — Emefiele

The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, has said that prices of food produce will crash as the government expects a bumper harvest in December this year.

Emefiele hinged his statement on the fact that Nigeria has not reported any major flood incident in 2021.

The CBN Boss who made the comment while answering questions raised at the 282nd Monetary Policy Meeting on Tuesday said agricultural produce would flood the Nigerian market by harvest.

He said, “We must continue price stability that is conducive to growth. Agric prices you will see luckily will be low. Infact in 2021, we did not hear of the case of flood at all, we are very thankful to God.

“As a result of that, we are expecting a very bumper harvest in all our agricultural products and if this happens, what that will do is that it will considerably dampen inflation and prices which will continue to help our attempt to continue to reduce inflation and moderate prices in the economy.”

Food prices constitute the major driver of inflation in the country.

Over the years Nigeria’s inflation has seen a record rise with 18.17 per cent growth recorded in April 2021.

But over the last six months, inflation has moderated to 15.99 per cent, but food inflation has since become a nightmare to the monetary authority.

Although food prices have gradually moderated in October to 18.34 per cent, food prices once rose as high as 21.83 per cent in June.

When the governor came into office, his target was to keep inflation at a single digit of between six per cent to nine per cent, a promise which experts believe is ambitious.