The greatest of all challenges facing this nation is food insecurity. Remember the popular saying: “A hungry man is an angry man.” When people are hungry, they become disoriented and vulnerable to temptations. Many of the hungry people could sell their soul for a plate of porridge. Malnutrition is so widespread among children that parents and health providers assume the children’s lethargy and stunting to be normal.
Ensuring food security has become an issue of key importance to people and government of Nigeria, and demands the support of all well-meaning and patriotic Nigerians. At a session on Thursday July 18, 2024, members of the House of Representatives agreed to slash 50 per cent of their monthly salaries for six months as part of their financial contribution to fight hunger in the country. That is commendable, but I believe the Honourable Representatives can do better. Nigeria like many African countries is more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change because we rely on rain-fed agriculture for food and livelihoods. Small-scale agriculture presents an opportunity to improve the livelihoods of the rural poor and ensure food security; however, many of the rural farmers, who had previously managed to successfully cultivate crops for subsistence use and to supplement their income, now experience poor yields or have ceased production due to attacks by terrorists and bandits.
Increasing climate variability, fluctuating temperature and rainfall patterns, is an indicator that agricultural processes will not remain the same as crop and ecosystem responses are also expected to change. These changes comprise variations in nutrient cycling, changes in evapotranspiration, soil moisture content, as well as changes in pest incidences and plant diseases, all these entirely impact food production and food security.
A resilient agricultural system is important in mitigating the effects of climate change. Resilience is defined as the ability or tendency of a system to maintain its organizational structure and efficiency after perturbation. Therefore, a resilient agricultural system will keep producing high crop yields even after severe climate changes such as droughts or significant rainfall reductions. Crop biodiversity can therefore provide the connection between climatic stress and resilience of the system because a diversity of organisms is important for ecosystems to perform optimally and provide essential services. Furthermore, integrating graduates for the national youth service programs as part of the agricultural workforce would go a long way to enhance productivity. I therefore suggest that the places of primary assignment of all Youth Corp drafts should henceforth be farms and other agricultural value chains.
Once upon a time, all food was organic. The worldwide population has increased tremendously. Unsurprisingly, the demand for food has grown beyond imagination. And so, humans have discovered different ways of growing food. Inorganic food is one of the results of those discoveries. Organic food is grown naturally without synthetic fertilizers, chemicals, pesticides, or hormones. Inorganic foods include food grown using chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and growth hormones; food with preservatives added to increase its shelf life is inorganic.
To ensure increased and sustainable crop productivity, Nigeria should embrace improved crop varieties that are adapted to diverse environments. Improved varieties help in building crop resilience to diseases, crop pests and environmental stresses such as the emergence of new pests. However, some Nigerians including members of the National Assembly have reservations about improved crop varieties. If the aversion to inorganic food especially those derived from genetically modified organism (GMO) is very strong, we should take drastic steps towards organic food production.
Young people do not want to work in a sector where work conditions are inadequate and ‘dirty’ work must be performed. Modernization has the potential to attract the interest of young people. Adopting innovative practices (using robotics, satellite-based crop monitoring, farm management software, etc.) would encourage the younger generation to take over farms and improve the viability of farms.
The problem of nation-building predisposed Nigeria’s ruling elite to thinking that the youths, who would be the country’s future leaders, would help to address its national challenges after the 1967-1970 Civil War. Government, therefore, came up with the idea of National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) which must start with the graduate youths. But, the students thought otherwise. They were mostly of the opinion that national service ought to be inclusive, sparing no segment of the population such as ministers, public officers and parents. Whatever their agitations and demands were in this period were put to rest when government held a dialogue with representatives of the National Union of Nigerian Students (NUNS) and subsequently went ahead to establish the scheme in 1973.
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In 2017, all River Basin Development Authorities in Nigeria were instructed to set up at least one Integrated Organic Farm patterned after the Songhai Model in Porto-Novo, République du Bénin, in each Senatorial District in Nigeria. I doubt if the task was carried out, because nothing like that in my home state, Enugu or state of residence, Lagos. We could revisit that arrangement, establishing the integrated farms in the 109 Senatorial zones of the federation for the NYSC primary assignments.
Students might disagree with this suggestion, just as they opposed the initial idea of NYSC. In preempting the students’ resistance, I suggest also the members of National Assembly (Senators/Representatives) in whose constituencies the farms are sited be involved as farm managers, adopting the proposed farm projects as their core constituency projects. The National Assembly members will engage their staff at the constituency offices as part of the farm workforce and supervisors. Security operatives should be available to protect the farms.
Food is the most basic of the three basic human needs and apart from sustaining the individual and making him fit for work and for play; it is also a national power. A nation that is self-sufficient or nearly self-sufficient in food production will become a respected actor in the international stage and will be playing from the position of strength. The one that cannot feed itself and therefore becomes a charity case must inevitably lose respect in the international arena.
Those who know better say: “agricultural growth is three times more effective in reducing extreme poverty than growth in other sectors. Such growth is heavily dependent on private-sector investments and functioning market mechanisms.” I therefore call on private sector investors to join forces with the government in fighting food insecurity.