With talks on the need for local value chains due to COVID-19 disrupting global supply chains and rising protectionism, is there any study of the impact on global food prices so far?

These indices suggest that there has not been a food crisis as anticipated.

Compare to the 2007/2008 food crisis for instance: "from January 2004 to May 2008, rice prices increased 224 percent, wheat prices increased 108 percent, and corn was up 89 percent"

With COVID-19, I think countries recognised quickly the need for global cooperation after the intial panic that led to trade restrictions. So maybe the global order has been more resilient than we think.

Going back to 2007/8 food crisis, countries also adopted export restrictions that affected food trade. This had a significant negative impact because of panic buying which drove prices higher. The same scenario almost played out this year, but mostly for medical supplies.

How did countries cope then? Some loosened tariffs that helped to reduce prices. Smart. In Nigeria, we still don't realise the foolishness of having high food tariffs with domestic shortages.

The tragedy of it all is not that global supply chains have been fragile amid COVID-19 but local supply chains have huge problems. This is from the World Bank.

Of course, I'm bringing this home. I complain about our ridiculous disposition to trade.

Food price inflation is around 18%-20% today, driven mainly by issues such as insecurity, weather challenges, planting issues etc. Relaxing food trade restrictions would have helped.

What did we get instead? Land borders remained shut, tariffs were retained, trade processes remained poor and the CBN imposed more FX restrictions on food.

Interestingly they were smart about reducing tariffs for medical supplies but not for food.

Also interestingly, we've had a food crisis, much less a health one. I don't understand how our policymakers can't see sense in relaxing food import restrictions given the local challenges we've seen this year.

I am not done. This is from the great plan of the buffoon in residence at the CBN. Well, the restrictions did not become the new normal.

And global trade would have been helpful, not furthering local inefficiencies and punishing Nigeria through restrictions.

This is why I don't take people who say the CBN can't do anything about food inflation seriously. And in fact, the CBN as we know it is not the same under Emefiele, who is the minister of everything.

I will end with this article I published with Stears in 2018. Policymakers in Nigeria can't tell the difference between food self-sufficiency and food security and this is a major problem. Don't fall for their tricks: "we need to produce what we consume" https://www.stearsng.com/article/nigeria-needs-food-security-not-food-self-sufficiency