A lecturer with the Department of Agronomy, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Ogbomosho, Prof Julius Ipadeola Olaifa has said lack of coherent national food security and nutrition policy has serious implications on human survival, national growth and development.
In a chat with Southwest Report, Prof Olaifa, who is a consultant to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the International Atomic Energy Agency, (IAEA) stated that if coherent national food security and nutrition policy the policy is put in place, it will be capable of transforming communities into healthy and productive food producers. This, he said, will ensure reliable and consistent access to affordable nutritious food.
He pointed out that hunger has devastating effects on the health and economic productivity of more than 80 per cent of Nigerians, adding that even those with access to food often suffer
terribly from malnutrition.
“Children not only suffer from the effect of malnutrition, but also from increased susceptibility to disease and other health risks such as neonatal disorders, diarrhoea, pneumonia and malaria. Under nutrition is the underlying cause of maternal mortality each year,” he said.
He further said hunger and malnutrition also affect economic development in near and long-term, while illness, hunger and the need to care for ill children reduces income, particularly for
women.
Seeking a paradigm shift in issues of food import, he urged the Federal Government to spend less on food importation, saying that government should not be rhetorical but pragmatic in reducing food import bill in order to guarantee food security for Nigerians.
“What Nigerians need is serious approach to revitalise the agricultural sector as is being done by the present administration.
“Imagine billions of Naira wasted annually on importation of wheat, when the chain values of cassava is yet to be fully exploited, let alone other cash crop such as mango. A lot of natural and agricultural resources abound in Oke-Ogun areas of Oyo State, for instance, but the government is not tapping them.
“This is why it is imperative for state governments to rehabilitate all their farm settlements, in order to improve agriculture. These resources alone can generate employment for thousands of jobless youths,” he said.
On how to transform the agricultural sector, Olaifa suggested increasing household access to agricultural inputs and credit, improving, natural resource management, and linking agricultural
outputs with local, regional, and national markets.
“Some of the ways to transform the agricultural sector are reduction of livelihood vulnerability, working with communities to increase access to water, as well as developing customised plans to ensure availability, ensuring that access and utilisation of food is stable and sustainable over a long period of time.
“There should be a sustainable social welfare policy that would address problems that might arise when markets do not provide adequate mechanisms to deal with economic uncertainties.
This, according to him, will ascertain the nature of the risks individuals experience in a given society, in order to tailor policies towards meeting these risks in a sustainable fashion.
“Part of the considerations should be based on the fact that agriculture and informal economies are very important because they account for 70 per cent of employment for the teeming population.
“This implies that social welfare programme should address issues on income uncertainties due to the fortuity of informal activities, which fluctuate considerably.”
He lamented the limited coverage of social security systems in the country, which he noted raises serious equity issues, even as he said societal valuable resources and efforts are often targeted at small and privileged segment of the population.
He said: “The Nigerian population is young, and is expected to remain like that over the period between 40 and 50 years.
“This age structure affects the behaviour and demand of social security services. But alas, budgetary allocation for agriculture ought to have been increased from its present 30 per cent to 70 per cent. If this age structure can be properly co-opted and coordinated into agriculture, it will not only prop-up employment generation, but will also reduce crimes, restiveness and other anti-social activities in our society.”
Olaifa stated that there is hardly any state in the country that is not effectively productive.
“Agricultural production is sustained by peasant farmers. We have good weather, no global warming, coupled with ample rainfall. These are what we need for production of crops such as cassava, maize and yam. We have fishery and poultry products in the Southwest. What of South-south and the Southeast that produce oil palm. Equally too are the onion, pepper, goats, and sheep produced in quantity in the North and moved to the South. What of pepper, carrots, and others?’’
“Politicians play politics with rice. They assume it is the only food commodity in the country. That is wrong. They have forgotten yams and plantains, which are produced locally, From Lagos to Maiduguri, Port Harcourt to Enugu and Ibadan, where is yam not taken as food? Yet, yam farmers across the country are not given the kind of attention given to rice until recently. The present administration is interested in rice, and is pragmatically improving its production locally,” he said.
Prof. Olaifa, however, pointed out that the major problem confronting the country currently is food processing.
‘’What have we developed from yam, cassava and plantain, for instance, other than garri, fufu, and chips? It is the present generation that started garri, fufu, and even the chips. We should develop new products from these commodities. China, Malaysia and Indonesia have no other crops other than rice. They have thousands of products developed from rice. That is what we need now,” he stated.
