By Gabriel Ewepu – Abuja

As food prices remain on the high side across the country, an agribusiness firm, Sweer Global Farms, Monday, disclosed moves to crash prices of garri, plantain and yam with its harvest.

This was made known by the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, SWEER Global Farms, Dr Thaddaeus Thompson, while speaking on how high food prices could be addressed.

Thompson said the purchasing power of Nigerians for food items gives him concern, while he acknowledged the fact that the issue of high food prices remains a concern to stakeholders in the agricultural sector.

He also said there could be solution if all stakeholders and the government would collaborate to tackle the soaring prices of food, and added that young people can also come out en mass into the sector to enhance food production.

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But stated that government should do all it can to stem the rising tide of insecurity that has scared many farmers from their farms.

He said: “As we talk now, SWEER Global Farms in Amassoma, Southern Ijaw Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, is set to tackle this issue of high food prices, which have mad it difficult for people to buy staple foods like garri, plantain, rice, maize, and others.

“We are so concerned about the high prices of food in the country, even though we are into profit-making, we are Nigerians and have to do business with human face as well by being fair enough despite the harsh business environment coupled with the global effects of climate change, COVID-19 pandemic, and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine War.

“But interestingly, we are going to harvest our cassava sitting on over 15 hectares, this month May, and also process it at our state of the art cassava processing factory located in Amassoma, and sell directly to Nigerians at affordable prices because we want to crash the high cost of garri.

“Our workers are currently working on our plantain plantation to harvest the plantains on several hectares of land we cultivated in 2021.

“The volume of plantain is going to be enormous because it is going to run into hundreds of dozens. The plan is to sell directly to Nigerians at affordable price.

“We also have hectares of land for yam, and soon we are going to harvest the yams and sell directly to the people at a reasonable price.”

According to him, the cassava, plantain and yam cultivated by the company are purely organic. He said the company decided to adopt organic farm as a result of unwholesome chemical process used by some farmers to produce food, which has led to health crisis in consumers.

“We believe in natural or organic process of producing food, and our cassava is purely without suing fertilizers or sprays to clear the weeds. The same applies to our plantain plantation and yam farm”, he said.

Meanwhile, he said the company is ready to collaborate with government in the area of food production, accessibility and affordability.

He added that they also off-take farm produce like cassava, garri, yam, rice, and others.

Speaking further, the SWEER Global boss assured support for women farmers in relevant areas of agribusiness to boost their productivity and profitability, while speaking on the important role women have played over the years in food production, because they have provide nations food and nutrition security.

Vanguard News Nigeria