[size=14pt]Nigeria: Food Insecurity As a Time Bomb[/size]
BY GRACE AZUBUIKE, 11 MARCH 2012

http://allafrica.com/stories/201203110293.html


[size=13pt]No country can truly be a sovereign nation if it is not capable of ensuring food security for its citizens. Recent estimates put the number of hungry people in Nigeria at over 53 million, just less than 30 per cent of the country's total population of roughly 160 million and 52 per cent live under the poverty line.[/size]

These are matters of grave concern largely because, as they say, a hungry man is an angry man. Nigeria was self sufficient in food production and was indeed a net exporter of food to other regions of the continent in the 1950s and 1960s.

Things changed dramatically for the worse following the global economic crisis that hit developing countries beginning from the late 1970s onward. The discovery of crude oil and rising revenue from the country's petroleum sector encouraged official neglect of the agricultural sector and turned Nigeria into a net importer of food. By 2009 for example, the federal ministry of agriculture estimated that Nigeria was spending over $3billion annually on food imports.

Although agriculture contributes 42 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which provides employment and a means of livelihood for more than 80 per cent of the productively engaged population, it receives less than 10 per cent of the annual budgetary allocations. Underfunding in this regard is central to the crisis of food production, and food security in Nigeria however this explains the persistence of poverty.

[b]Meanwhile, the minister of agriculture and rural development, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina has bemoaned the country's large importation of rice, wheat, fishes and sorghum, decrying its inability to create jobs in the rural areas but rather increases its investment in overseas.

The minister noted that Nigeria has become a floodgate for food imports. For a country that can grow different types of rice, it still spends N1billion on rice importation making its total annual import worth N635 billion annually.

Furthermore, the loss of food sovereignty and the dependence on food importation are also making the country quite susceptible to fluctuations in global food crisis. This is why Nigeria was strongly affected by the global food crisis in 2007/2008.

Just recently, the National Emergencies Management Agency (NEMA), says roughly 30 per cent of the population, about 15 million people, in the 11 northern states are food insecure. Findings have established strong correlation between hunger and the rising trend of poverty. Those who are poor lack the basic access to market their goods and they are unable to vary or enrich their diets.[/b]

A civil servant in Abuja Abdul Mustapha, said that politicians have talked so much about poverty alleviation programmes, youth employment schemes and the need to increase food production without concrete things to show for them.

Mustapha attributed the present economic situation in Nigeria to the poor performance of the agricultural sector, inconsistent and unfocused government policies as a fatal problem that caused food in security in the country.

Furthermore, poverty and hunger are perpetual urban phenomena largely due to rapidly shrinking employment opportunities and high costs of living. Compounding the problem is the seemingly irresolvable incoherence in government's policy formulation and implementation strategies.

For example, as a response to the recent food crisis in the country the Federal Government, through the ministry of agriculture and water resources then, facilitated the development of a National Food Crisis Response Program me (NFCRP), The Food Security Thematic Group (FSTG), was also established in 2009 and the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), was invited to provide guidance. Despite demonstrated efforts at building institutions to address hunger and poverty in the country, no further step has since been taken to consolidate set agenda.

[size=13pt]Meanwhile, the previous administrations have tied, through various programmes, initiatives and policies to address these challenges and develop agriculture in Nigeria. On reviewing the performances of all these initiatives, the weaknesses identified were mainly on policy inconsistencies, the over emphasis on production without due consideration to other value chain requirements.

Speaking further an agriculture expert in Abuja, Mr. Kenndey Nwakpa, said that food security exists when all people at all times have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy lifestyle. But in Nigeria the reverse is the case. How many homes can boost of a three square meal a day? Our leaders are not interested in the welfare of the masses.[/size]

However, experts attribute factors that place people at risk of becoming food insecure, such as unrestrained population growth to political instability so any nation nurturing the objective of strong economic growth must therefore ensure sustainable food security for its people. This has become even more important in the face of the current global food crises.

[size=13pt]The minister said despite the huge amount of money spent on importing food, the productivity in the country remains very low and this contributes to the growing food insecurity.

He stressed the need for Nigeria to translate the country's huge agricultural potentials into realities by encouraging local production and strengthening the value chain so as to make Nigeria self-sufficient and generate income and wealth for the Nigerian farmers. He stated that his coming to the ministry was not to serve any selfish, political or business interests but to serve the Nigerian farmer through the provision of incentives to rapidly raise agricultural productivity, improve incomes of farmers, create jobs and secure food supply for global competitiveness.[/size]

Agriculture remains a key component of the Nigerian economy, currently contributing about 40 per cent of the Nigerian Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and employing about 70 per cent of the active population. The sector has however, significantly underperformed its potential only 32 million hectares of land as about 46 per cent is cultivated while more than 90 per cent of agricultural output is accounted for by households with less than 2 hectares under cropping farm sizes range from 0.5 ha in the South to 4 ha in the North. Supply of agricultural inputs has been generally sub-optimal.

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The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), in its state of Food Insecurity in the World, had indicated that Nigeria had about 12 million people reported as undernourished as at 2003; the report strongly recommends that all nations must take agriculture seriously by mobilising and investing a good proportion of their resources into agriculture to achieve food security.

[size=13pt]Similarly, Nigeria is still characterised by high reliance on food imports, malnutrition is widespread in the entire country and especially the rural areas are vulnerable to chronic food shortages, unbalanced nutrition, poor quality and high cost of food.

There is a high level of malnutrition among children in rural areas and the problem of food has not been adequately and critically analyzed despite various approaches at addressing the challenge. Most importantly enormous amount of funds spent in attempting to assure the food security of Nigerians without success calls for a fundamental review of the past approaches and achievements.

Despite all these obviously abundant human and natural resources, the country is still unable to feed her citizens producing about 500,000 tones of rice while the annual consumption is 2.5 million tones. Nigeria is now the world's second-largest rice importer after Singapore spending over $350 million on rice importation alone.[/size]

LEADERSHIP, findings gathered that food insecurity and malnutrition in rural areas of Nigeria result from non-implementation and faulty implementation of National Food Policy, unacceptably high levels of poverty in rural areas, poor funding, poor infant and child feeding practices, inadequate access to healthy environment and health services as well as various care practices.

Auwal Musa of the West African Civil Society Forum (WACSOF) Nigeria, blamed dire poverty in African countries, especially in West Africa to leaders in the continent who he said are corrupt and greedy and at the moment, millions of men, women, and children are in dire need of food, clean water and basic sanitation.

Musa lamented that the food crisis is set to worsen and expand over the coming months, adding that the suffering flies in the face of commitments made in continental, regional and national policy frameworks and human rights conventions.

However, according to him, the crisis is symptomatic of a failure to address the root causes of food insecurity in the region, which mean that in a world with enough food for everyone, 12 million people are suffering the worst food crisis in Africa for many years.

The Chairman Board of Trustees, National Agricultural Foundation of Nigeria (NAFN), Senator Abdullahi Adamu, said Nigeria is not food secured, stating that this is a national challenge as food must be made affordable for all citizens.

Highlighting the problems of the sector such as bad and unimaginative policies, policy inconsistencies, misplacement of priorities and corruption have combined to stunt the growth of underdevelopement of agriculture.

The senator said Nigeria has lost its pride of place in the export market to other countries as it now cannot feed itself and has to import food items Nigeria can produce food in abundance, he said, noting that food imports are growing at the alarming but clearly unsustainable rate of 11 per cent per annum.

Still speaking on the issue, Adamu hinted that we cannot have peace and so cannot develop when local production is falling and our farmers are being displaced, when inflation is being fuelled by food imports, when unemployment rate is rising, poverty is increasing among the population and when hunger is ravaging the land.

For Bello Ogar, a small-scale farmer in Zoba, who spoke to LEADERSHIP, he lamented that our agricultural sector has collapsed; government is not helping us with incentives while the economy and government have no regard for agriculture, whereas peasant farmers in the rural areas struggle with what they cultivate from their farms, adding that for us to move as a nation government should go back to agriculture and make it a priority.

The annual post-harvest loss recorded by the Nigerian farmers constitute greater threat to food security, socio-economic living conditions of the populace and by extension sustainable growth and development of the Nigerian economy especially in the face of the global financial crisis bedevilling national economies.

unnecessary sensationalism