At the root of the lingering food crisis bedeviling the country is the issue of worsening insecurity across the major food baskets of the federation. In this report, Ibrahim Apekhade Yusuf attempts a prognosis of the crisis as cross-section of experts proffer solutions.
Nigeria is in dire straits, no doubt. But the worsening food crisis is as a result of the ravaging insecurity in major food baskets of the nation.
This is the damning verdict of experts who have monitored the parlous state of the economy.
According to these experts, the cost of living crisis exacerbated by the high cost of food arose from the insecurity crisis across most food supply chains in the country.
Firing the first salvo, Prof. Kola Adebayo, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Development) Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB), speaking in an interview with The Nation at the weekend, observed that at the centre of the food crisis is what he described as a self-inflicted problem.
Waxing philosophical, the university don said, “For those who don’t cultivate crops they can’t expect good harvest.”
Pressed further, Adebayo, who sits atop as the Team Leader, International and Rural Development at the Livelihoods Support and Development Centre, Nigeria, noted that “All the problems we are facing in our food production value chain are self-induced. We have always fed ourselves. We have never had the challenge of not being able to feed ourselves. If we are serious about fixing this problem, we must address the issue of insecurity frontally.
“Nigeria is not facing famine of any sorts. No. we just need to address the problem of insecurity first. If people get killed because they stepped into their farms, then others would never be encouraged to step their foot on the farms too. Even people who transport food are not spared either. We have been feeding ourselves for so long when we didn’t face this insecurity crisis.”
He noted that there is a need to restore the farmers’ confidence back such that when they return to their farms they feel safe and can cultivate their farmlands without any form of molestation or threats to their lives.
That is the immediate and short term solution to address the food crisis, he stressed.
“In the medium term, we need to support the food system by providing appropriate technology, farm implements such as tractors, fertilizers, herbicides and whatnots to the farmers, and then you talk of extension services. But you can’t be talking about all of these if you don’t address the problem of insecurity first. There are no quick fixes at all. Unless insecurity is tackled frontally nothing else matters.”
Adebayo’s counterpart at the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology Ogbomoso (LAUTECH), Prof. Abel Babalola Ogunwale, is also on the same page.
The professor of Agricultural Extension who spoke with our correspondent recently while attempting a prognosis of the food crisis, said the problem is multifaceted and as such is not a one size fits all approach.
“We have major problems hindering our food security from four perspectives. One is the issue of security threats vis-à-vis the situation in Benue, Zamfara, Jigawa, Borno, Adamawa axis and even the borderline between Nigeria and Cameroon and the other aspect is the Nigeria and Niger Republic issue,” he said.
The insecurity, he maintained, is as a result of the Boko Haram insurgency in parts of the north. “We have a lot of insurgency activities affecting those areas.”
“The second challenge, of course, is the issue of climate change. Climate change has resulted in flooding, and some devastation on the farming system,” he observed, adding that the issue of inconsistencies of government policies have seriously and negatively impacted farming activities generally.
“If the government can look into each of them, and take proactive measures against next year, we may avert serious food insecurity in Nigeria.”
Farms no longer safe
For many people, insecurity is at the heart of the matter of the food crisis in the country today. From Oyo, Ekiti, Ondo, Osun, Edo, Kogi, Delta, Benue, Kaduna, Taraba, Borno, Nasarawa, Zamfara, Sokoto, Anambra, Enugu, Imo, and other parts of the federation, the farmers have not become just endangered species but have since abandoned their farm steads, no thanks to the lingering problem of insecurity they confront on a daily basis.
The rapidity of the assaults of events on the farmlands is such that many people have even lost count of how and when it happens.
The fear in some quarters is that Nigeria, just like it happened in the distant past, may suffer some form of food insecurity if nothing is done to safeguard the states within the nation’s food basket from lingering insecurity, menace of flooding, poor infrastructure, etcetera.
This is in spite of the several interventions by successive governments, especially in the last 20 years or more, revealed Prof Ogunwale.
Looking beyond insecurity
A recent report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) indicated that the downturn in food production in the country may not be attributable to the impact of insecurity alone.
The report indicated that prices of key farming inputs such as seeds, herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers, and agro machinery rose sharply within the period, making it increasingly hard for farmers to expand their production and forcing many to cut down on production.
Analysts attribute this situation to the operating environment characterised by low productivity, high post-harvest losses, low-value addition, fragmented markets, and inefficient value chain logistics.
“Nigeria, like other African countries, is battling food insecurity as a result of many factors such as instability of government in neighbouring countries like Niger where we get the bulk of our rice paddies, forex scarcity, farmer herder crisis, infrastructure challenge and poor access to finance for agribusiness, etc.,” Ogunwale noted matter-of-factly, stressing that many hitherto thriving farmers especially smallholders have abandoned their passion for agriculture to become commercial motorcyclists, amongst many other less life-threatening ventures.
Nigeria not alone
An estimated 50 million people in West, Central Africa are expected to go hungry next year due to a combination of conflict, climate change and high food prices, the United Nations has revealed.
The figure is 4% higher than in 2023. In coastal countries, the number of people facing acute hunger is expected to reach 6.2 million in 2024, up 16% from this year, according to a new regional food security analysis released by the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) and other humanitarian agencies.
“Acute hunger remains at record levels in the region, yet funding needed to respond is not keeping pace,” said Margot Vandervelden, WFP’s acting regional director for Western Africa.
“Insufficient funding means the moderately hungry will be forced to skip meals and consume less nutritious food, putting them at risk of falling back into crisis or emergency phases, perpetuating the cycle of hunger and malnutrition,” she said.
More than two out of three households in West and Central Africa cannot afford healthy diets, the analysis found.
The cost of a daily nutritious diet in the central Sahel countries Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger is 110% higher than the daily minimum wage in the region, it said.
Sahel countries are facing an Islamist insurgency that has displaced some four million people from their homes and farms, according to U.N. figures. Democratic Republic of Congo also has multiple ongoing conflicts that have displaced nearly seven million.
The Sahel crisis has pushed people to seek refuge in neighbouring coastal countries such as Ivory Coast, Togo and Ghana, which is grappling with its worst economic crisis in a generation.
“Almost 80% of people who are currently in a difficult food situation are in areas affected by conflict,” said Ollo Sib, a senior research adviser for the WFP.
He warned that without intervention, the situation could deteriorate further in certain areas as over 2.6 million people were at risk of falling into famine.
In the view of Rotimi Opeyemi Olawale, CEO of JR Farms Limited, a leading agribusiness venture operates within few countries in Africa and Europe including Nigeria, Rwanda, Zambia and also the in Netherlands, at the root of the crisis of food insecurity plaguing Nigeria is poor farm systems and general insecurity.
While offering recommendations to tackle the food crisis in Nigeria, Olawale said there is a need to transit from smallholder farms to large farms.
“We cannot have food security when our food security model as a country is dependent on smallholder farmers- smallholder farmers are generally vulnerable and victims of risks, they also operate on a small scale without use of technologies that can accelerate food production,” he said.
Pressed further, he said, “66% of food sales in the US come from commercial farms which constitute less than 10% of the farming population. We need commercial farms in Nigeria. Over the years the government has rolled out several interventions in the past for smallholder farmers that did not produce good results, this must change as such the government should develop frameworks and interventions for commercial farms. This would ensure more food can be produced in large quantities to meet growing demand for food.”
On how to tackle the intractable problem of insecurity, he said the government must be ready to live up to its constitutional mandate of providing safety and security for the citizenry.
“In the past eight years, insecurity has driven many farmers out of farms and displaced many, many factory owners in rural areas have also been affected by kidnapping, killings among others. As part of the major ways to tackle the food crisis, farms and rural areas must be made safe and secure for farmers, investors, and food factories to operate.”
Also worrisome is the fact that the dearth of road infrastructure within and around local communities remains a disincentive to farming.
“Rural and major highways connecting farms to market are still in bad condition, this makes it difficult for trucks conveying food items to reach the market thereby leading to food losses. For example, over 60% of food items get wasted in Nigeria and the poor road network is one of the reasons. Trucks carrying perishables are stuck on the road for many days due to bad roads. Good roads are important for transportation of food from farm to market (city) hence ensuring food security.”
Also with the federal government already setting machinery in motion with a raft of policy interventions, it is expected that things would change for the better in no distant time.
Peter Adebola, an economic analyst, shares Olawale’s sentiments completely.
According to him, until the government addresses the twin issues of insecurity as well as boost commercial agriculture, the populace will continue to face acute hunger.
Thankfully, one of the blessed assurances of better things to come is the proposal by the African Development Bank to invest $1billion into Nigeria’s agricultural sector in order to ensure massive job opportunities and food security.
The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari dropped this hint during a press briefing with State House Correspondents after the conclusion of the 137th National Economic Council meeting presided over by Vice-President Kashim Shettima at the Aso Rock Villa, Abuja, recently.
Commodity board to the rescue
In the view of analysts, amongst policy initiatives by the government is the introduction of commodity boards, which they argue will be a game changer in the quest to ensure food supply all year round.
It may be recalled that the federal government has hinted at plans to establish a National Commodity Board as a solution to the escalating food inflation in the country.
Vice President Kashim Shettima gave this hint last Tuesday during a two-day high-level strategic meeting on climate change, food systems and resource mobilisation held at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Delivering his address titled, “Climate Resilience and Food Security: Nigeria’s Vision for the Future,” VP Shettima said the two-day event is an attestation of Nigeria’s efforts at mitigating the effects of climate change and ensuring food security for Nigerians.
Recalling that food security was one of the eight areas of priority declared by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as part of his Renewed Hope Agenda, which led to the declaration of a state of emergency on food security, the VP highlighted ongoing policy reforms by the administration to ensure food and water availability, as well as affordability.
“Our solution to the potential food crisis has become immediate, medium, and long-term strategies. The short-term strategy entails revitalizing food supply through specific interventions like the distribution of fertilizers and grains to farmers and households to counteract the effects of subsidy removal; fostering collaboration between the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Water Resources for efficient farmland irrigation, ensuring year-round food production, and addressing price volatility by establishing a National Commodity Board.
“This board will continually assess and regulate food prices, maintaining a strategic food reserve for stabiliSing prices of crucial grains and other food items,” the VP stated.
He assured that while the Tinubu administration is fully invested in the restoration of degraded land, there are ongoing plans “to restore four million hectares, or nearly 10 million acres, of degraded lands within” the nation’s borders as its contribution to the AFR100 Initiative.
On how the government is handling the security challenges that have prevented farmers from working on their farms, he said, “I wish to assure you that we will engage our security architecture to protect the farms and the farmers so that farmers can return to the farmlands without fear of attacks.
“We won’t only make it safe for farmers to return to their farms, but we will also ensure the activation of land banks. There are currently 500,000 hectares of already mapped land that will be used to increase the availability of arable land for farming, which will immediately impact food output.”
VP Shettima added that the Tinubu administration is also collaborating “with mechanisation companies to clear more forests and make them available for farming,” even as the Central Bank of Nigeria “will also continue to play a major role in funding the agricultural value chain.
“We will deploy concessionary capital to the sector, especially towards fertilizer, processing, mechanisation, seeds, chemicals, equipment, feed, labour, among others. The concessionary funds will ensure food is always available and affordable, thereby having a direct impact on Nigeria’s Human Capital Index (HCI). This administration is focused on ensuring the HCI numbers, which currently rank as the 3rd lowest in the world, are improved for increased productivity,” he added.
Mr Shettima also restated frantic efforts by the administration “to ensure a massive boost in employment and job creation”, noting that it “is another presidential area of priority.
“The government will make agriculture attractive for our teeming youth population with a view to creating between 5 to 10 million more jobs for them within the agriculture value chain, working with the current 500,000 hectares of arable land and the several hundreds of thousands more farmlands to be developed in the medium term,” he pointed out.
These efforts, the VP continued, are part of the federal government’s bid to actualize the “UN-Agenda 2030 on Sustainable Development Goals 2 of “Zero Hunger” and African Union Agenda 2063, which aims to transform Africa into a global powerhouse of the future.
“But we can’t achieve this unless we guarantee food security by building the capacity of smallholder farmers who account for about 88% of the total food production in Nigeria,” he further noted.
He implored those at the event, including development partners, private investors and the diplomatic community, among others, to make sure the high-level engagement results in a positive outcome.
Also speaking at the event, the National Coordinator of NEPAD, Gloria Akobundu, praised President Tinubu for his efforts towards making Nigeria a great nation.
“We are happy with the resolve by the administration of President Bola Tinubu to stand undeterred by any odds in his objective to build a viable, effective and great nation,” she said.
Mrs Akobundu said NEPAD decided to convene the stakeholders’ forum to strengthen smallholder farmers in Nigeria as a way of addressing the food shortage problem in the country.
“We have gathered key stakeholders from across Nigeria and all over the world to commence the resource mobilisation conversation for smallholder farmers in Nigeria and Africa and emphasize the urgency of action required in the face of the current and growing food crisis,” she added.
On his part, AU Chairman of Food System, Dr. Ibrahim Maiyaki, said the challenges that will confront Africa in the next 20 to 30 years could be tackled through three parameters: the continent’s know-how, expertise and leadership.
“The demographic challenge the continent is facing can be turned into opportunities for Africa through inclusion, job creation and ability to feed Africa and the rest of the world,” he stated.
Maiyaki called for strong regional integration through food transformation as well as boosting productivity and economic growth rates through the right policies and governance objectives.
Can the government get security right?
With worries over mounting insecurity across the country, security experts have impressed on the government the need to step up efforts to address the problem headlong.
President Bola Tinubu, in the company of Vice President Kashim Shettima, met with the 36 state governors and the Minister, Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike.
The meeting was held at the State House in Abuja on Thursday.
The meeting was necessitated by the rising price of food items and insecurity, and delayed/non-payment of salaries and gratuities owed workers, retirees and pensioners, amongst others.
This was disclosed in a tweet posted on X by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Temitope Ajayi, in a statement issued by the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga
Onanuga stated that “the meeting agreed on common ground to address some of the challenges currently facing the country, especially the rising cost of food and insecurity.
“After extensive deliberations, the President and Governors agreed to work together to solve the problems and tackle the economic pressure being faced by the citizens.”
On addressing insecurity which is also affecting farming and food production, President Tinubu made three key pronouncements.
President Tinubu informed the governors that the Federal Government will work with them and the National Assembly towards putting in place a mechanism that will engender state police instead of the vigilantes that are being used in some states.
The President charged the governors to strengthen their Forest Rangers and arm them to keep all the forests safe from criminals. Modalities for state police and addressing security issues are to be discussed further at the National Economic Council.
On the rising cost of food, the President directed that the state governments and federal government should collaborate to increase local food production.
The President advised against the idea of food importation and price control when local food producers should be encouraged to produce more food.
The President advised governors to follow the example of Kano state in dealing with the hoarding of food for profiteering by commodities merchants.
He directed the Inspector-General of Police, National Security Adviser and Department of State Security Services to monitor warehouses hoarding food items across the country and stop profiteering by merchants.
He also charged governors to pay attention to livestock development in their states and increase production most especially poultry and fishing products.
Besides, President Tinubu pleaded with governors to ensure all salary arrears to workers and gratuities to retired workers and pensioners are cleared as a way to put money into the hands of the people since states are now getting more monthly FAAC revenue.
This is just as Tinubu implored the governors to create more economic opportunities for the youths in their states to keep them more productively engage
Also speaking in a monitored television magazine programme on Channels TV, Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau, the former governor of Kano state said it has become inevitable for a joint team of security from the subnational and the federal government to come on stream.
Shekarau, who said community policing was the way to go, lamented that the numerical strength of the regular police force was grossly inadequate to police the country.
“Egypt with over 80 million population has over 4 million policemen whereas Nigeria with over 200m million people is being policed by just 350, 000 policemen. That is grossly inadequate. On the average, 5, 000 policemen leave the force annually either through retirement, dismissal or death and this is despite the poor training, welfare. There should be a minimum of 50, 000 recruitment to the force annually to fill the yawning gap,” Shekarau admonished.
Like Shekarau, Dr Abdullahi Jabi, Secretary-General of the International Institute of Professional Security (IIPS), while speaking in a phone-in interview on Politics Today at TVC, while lauding the concerted efforts by the current administration said the idea of community policing should be given a thorough outlook.
While commenting on the emergency meeting between President Tinubu and the governors of the 36 states of the federation, he said it was well-thought out as it would help to address the issue of insecurity that has become a festering sore of some sorts.
