By Elizabeth Adegbesan

As prices of commodities continue to soar in Nigeria, households have designed strategies to feed without getting stuck with market price vicissitudes.

Part of the strategies is to mill their grains, bake their bread and produce their food to circumvent the rising cost of food.

Economy and lifestyle findings revealed that families now produce food themselves.

Further findings showed that foods, such as spaghetti, bread, spices and flours for swallows (powdered yam, wheat, oat, guinea corn, millet) are now produced by individuals in their homes and businesses to cut costs.

Mrs. Shodimu Neemat, a food vendor, said she produces her spaghetti since the price of spaghetti increased from N200 to N1,200.

She said: “The cost of everything food has increased tremendously in the market. This is making households and businesses, especially food vendors, think a lot on how to avoid making losses.
“As a food vendor, I used to make spaghetti jollof in large amounts for sale. The increasing cost of spaghetti reduced patronage because the portions became very small.

“Thinking about ways to solve the problem, I remembered the old method of producing spaghetti.
“You use flour, egg and salt. You can produce with or without a machine. This has helped me a lot and my patronage is better than before.

“All households should embrace self-food production this period because most of these packaged foods are what we can produce ourselves.”

Mrs. Agbasi Immaculate, a teacher, said: “The state of the economy has made me learn many things including producing my food and spices.

“If you go online today, you will learn how to produce various dry and wet foods, some of which we were producing a long time ago and abandoned because we were trying to beat time and stress.

“Today we have returned to that abandoned practice and have less to worry about cutting costs.

“I make my own spices. We have dry ingredients in the market. All I do is mix them appropriately, toast and blend them into powdered form, which is then stored.

“I also make my spaghetti and also powdered food such as swallows.

“Before, we had yam powder (elubo dudu in Yoruba), cassava flour (lafun in Yoruba), plantain flour and corn flour (tuwo in Hausa).

“Now, there are other varieties that people are embracing instead of struggling to buy a rubber paint of garri which has risen from N500 to over N5,000.

“I mix guinea corn, millet and cassava flour for swallow. I also mix rice and cassava flour.
“These combinations you can produce a paint rubber with less than N5,000 and it would last a family of four for a month plus.

“It is better than a 10 kg bag of semo or wheat that costs up to N15,000 depending on the brand.”
Mrs. Saidat Hassan, an event planner, complained bitterly on the reduction in the quality and quantity of most packaged processed food.

“ The increasing price of goods and services is threatening the production of food items, especially the processed ones.

“To cut costs, some production companies have reduced the quantity while some have reduced the ingredients, which reflects in the quality.

“This has made many households and food vendors produce food items such as spices, spaghetti, bread and flour, themselves. As an event planner, I cook for people and homes.

“To cut costs, I produce my flour from yam, plantain, wheat, oat, rice, and millet among other things. I also bake my bread even in my home to cut costs.

“Recently, the price of bread has increased. Before, when such happens people switch to yam. But today, the yam is even more expensive than bread.

“So people are getting wiser and working towards cutting costs daily to save money for other expenses.”