Speaker of the House of Representatives Tajudeen Abbas said yesterday that the burden of armed conflcit, rising population and climate change has aggravated issues of food insecurity within the African continent.
The Speaker, who spoke at the 18th Commonwealth Speakers’ and Presiding Officers’ Conference (CSCOP) in Yaoundé, Cameroon identified impact of COVID 19 pandemic; rising population; subsistence farming and crude agricultural practices; lack of access to credit, poor infrastructure, and lack of investment in agri-business as other factors causing food crisis on the African continent.
He gave example of the actitivites of Boko Haram and herdsmen/farmers clash in Nigeria to butress his point, saying: “Suffice it to say that these factors reinforce themselves. For example, armed conflicts disrupt agricultural activities by destroying crops, livestock and preventing farmers from access to the farms.
“The Nigerian case demonstrates this much. The activities of Boko Haram terrorists in the North Eastern part of the country greatly contributed to Nigeria’s rising food insecurity as farmers could not have access to their farms following the sacking of several villages in the wake of the attacks, which lasted for several years. “
“The terrorist attacks equally impacted negatively on the activities of commercial fishermen within the Lake Chad region.”
He added that the recurring conflicts between herders and farmers in Nigeria is a “fallout from the impact of climate change, which brought in its wake, drought and extreme weather conditions in the Northern part of the country.
This, he said, necessitated the need for herders to move their flock to other parts of the country for grazing.
Abbas said the movement of the herds “often destroys farmlands and crops, which triggers retaliatory action from farmers who in turn, slaughter the livestock of the herders”.
“These two actions further worsen the food crisis as both livestock and crops are destroyed,” he said.
He said extreme weather conditions occasioned by climate change and global warming pose severe threats to agricultural production and increases food insecurity within the continent.
He said: “Our food insecurity is equally exacerbated by poor infrastructure within the continent which ensures that farmers are unable to preserve produce, transform them as well as move their produce to urban centres for better pricing.
“Related to the foregoing is the lack of investment in agribusiness, which is as a result of a number of factors, including poor infrastructure, ill-conceived policies, lack of access to land, high cost of doing business and many others.”
He called on parliaments on the continent to address some of the issues causing food crisis.