The Nation Newspaper

Tag: sufficiency

  • Improving food sufficiency and nutrition

    SIR: Access to food is a fundamental human right. However, in recent times, there has been a surge in the number and proportion of hungry people across the globe. Recent estimates from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations says world hunger is on the rise. The number of undernourished people in the world increased in 2017, for the third consecutive year. It was reported that 821 million people (11 percent of the world’s population) suffered chronic undernourishment. This translates to one in nine people on the planet. Most of these people are family and subsistence farmers living in poor rural areas of sub-Sahara Africa and Southeast Asia.

    Concurrently, statistics in the same year show that various forms of malnutrition have also increased, with at least 1.5 billion people suffering from micronutrient deficiencies that undermine their health and lives.

    Whereas hunger is highly prevalent in areas ravaged by conflicts, droughts and extreme poverty, overweight and obesity is on the rise all around the world, and we are now witnessing the globalization of diet-related non-communicable diseases. For example, overweight and obesity rates are reported to be climbing faster in Africa than in any other region – eight out of the 20 countries in the world with the fastest rates of adult overweight and obesity are in Africa. Furthermore, childhood overweight affected 38 million children under five years of age in 2017.

    All of this has brought about a need to transform agriculture and food systems to deliver improved nutrition and sustainable and resilient rural communities. All stakeholders need to redouble their efforts in order to boost food sufficiency and improve nutrition. It is not just about feeding people, it is also about providing people with the necessary nutrients for a healthy life.

    Current global food systems have increased the availability and accessibility of processed foods that are very high in energy dense calories, ultra-processed fat, sugar and salt, but low in essential micronutrients. This leads to “hidden hunger.”

    Food systems must be transformed in ways that provide all people with healthy and nutritious food. There must be a collective effort towards providing healthy diets that include diversified nutrient-dense foods, including bio-fortified foods, fruits/vegetables, as well as animal-source foods. It also involves the creation of standards on fortification, proper labelling of foods, as well as the banning of some harmful ingredients.

    Also, having in mind that dietary behaviours during adolescence contribute to the establishment of lifelong eating patterns, food-related education programmes should be incorporated into the school curricula. Schools are ideal settings for nutrition education because they reach most youth, and nutrition fits into several subject areas including health, science, and consumer science/education.

    School-based nutrition education curricula should aim to improve students’ knowledge, skills, self-efficacy, and behaviour aligned with the dietary guidelines. Proper nutrition education can help young people to attain the knowledge and the skills that they need to make proper food choices and develop lifelong healthy eating patterns.

    It is also important that both private and public schools at all levels establish viable school farms. School farms are not just spaces for growing food items. They are complete learning zones, which largely succeed in taking learning to new heights. The knowledge obtained from practical sessions on the school farm helps not only to re-enforce what is taught in the classrooms. It also teaches pupils, and students alike, about eating healthy, about how food arrives our homes from the farms, etc. It also equips the pupils/students with first-hand knowledge of how to run agribusinesses. This is especially important in cultivating an entrepreneurial spirit in the students.

    Secondary school curricula, for example, needs to cover issues like: “where do foods come from?”, “how food is produced”, “what makes up a food product” and “which foods are manufactured”.  School-leavers need to know about the way that food is distributed, imported and exported, as well as impacts on the local businesses and local farmers. They need to know the role of industry and jobs, and people that are involved and affected. They also need to be taught importance of supporting local farmers and small local businesses. Furthermore, they need to understand the effects of food wastage and food packaging on the environment.  They need to understand food security on a global level, and their learning should be brought right down to the community level in terms of the most vulnerable people in certain communities such as homeless, unemployed and those kinds of high risk groups. Some schools encourage children to do community service and that’s a good experience for them.

     

    • Daniel Ighakpe, FESTAC Town, Lagos.
  • ‘10,000Gw needed to achieve energy sufficiency’

    ‘10,000Gw needed to achieve energy sufficiency’

    Nigeria requires over 10,000 gigawatts (Gw) of electricity to achieve energy sufficiency and improve its economy, experts have said.

    The experts included the former Executive Director, National Integrated Power Project (NIPP), Dr Albert Okorogu and the Chairman, Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Nigeria Council, Dr. Saka Matemilola.

    They said the 10,000Gw of electricity was achievable if thev Federal Government could provide infrastructure, adding that developed economies such as Japan, United States, China, and others put adequate infrastructure in place before they could deliver huge quantum of electricity.

    Okorogu said infrastructure was the major problem of the electricity sector, adding that efforts made to solve the problem have yielded little or no results. He said pipeline needed for the evacuation of gas from producers to turbines should be adequate and counter-proof to forestall attacks.

    He said inability of the power firms to access gas for operation has resulted in poor generation and supply of electricity. He noted that the Federal Government established NIPP to enable power plants access gas in the Niger Delta, adding that yet shortage of gas still remained.

    Okorogu decried the losses suffered by power generation companies (GenCos) and gas firms from  blowing of pipelines and other oil and gas facilities by militants.

    The issue, he said, is having cost implications on the two operators as well as the entire sector.

    According to him, a pragmatic approach must be adopted by the Federal Government and stakeholders to solve the problem of infrastructure in the sector. “There is need for the government to provide a strong template that would be used to provide solution to infrastructure problem in the energy sector. Once the template is enduring and guided by rules and regulations, whoever breaks the rules would face the consequence,” he added.

    Also, Matemilola said Nigeria can generate 10,000Gw of electricity if it is ready to do it. He said the country must provide a conducive environment for operators in order to galvanise investments in the sector.

    He said once the right environment is in place in the sector, investors would be able to invest in key infrastructural facilities such as pipelines, turbines and others. “Nigeria can achieve 10,000Gw of electricity if it wants to do it. It’s a modest target and it is achievable considering the vast human and material resources in the country. What we need to do is to put in place all the things that we need to do to achieve the goal. Private investors have the capacity to create investments and the government must not hesitate to invite them in order to grow the sector,” he added.

    He said companies that have left Nigeria for neighbouring countries such as Ghana, Ivory Coast and others, to seek  comparative advantage would come back home when electricity improves, noting that a lot of companies have folded up due to irregular supply of power. He stressed that such companies can be revived when generation picks up. The multiplier effects are many because many people would get jobs to do, he added.

  • ‘Embrace farming for food sufficiency, revenue’

    With the advancement in technology and changes in user behaviour, hotel industry dynamics are also changing.  Many customers pre-book their trip online rather than going to a certified travel agent. This has influenced an exponential growth in the hospitality industry, especially as consumers have become ‘smarter’ with smart devices. Now, entreprenuers are leveraging on technology for better efficiency and higher returns, DANIEL ESSIET reports.

    Young Nigerians do not want to dirty their hands anymore, and it just shocks me.

    “Now if the average Nigerian spends N100 ($0.6) per meal, and we are a population of 170 million people, my question to you is this: why have we neglected an industry that has the potential of generating N51billion ($300million) on a daily basis? Those are numbers you should begin to think about.”

    These were the posers to Nigerian youths by Cynthia Mosunmola Umoru, an entreprenuer who has spent the last 10 years building her career in agriculture.

    She started Honeysuckles PTL Ventures straight out of college, and today the business is engaged in farming, food processing and distribution. The company runs its flagship retail outlet “Farm shopper” in Ikeja, Lagos, offering a wide range of farm produce, including poultry products, eggs, snails, catfish and vegetables.

    At a recent TEDxIfe event in Nigeria, Umoru told the audience that country’s agricultural sector has been severely neglected.

    She said:“Today Nigeria is the current dumping ground for food produce from all over the world. We have grown a palate for food we don’t produce. We have developed a lifestyle we can’t sustain… We bring in tomatoes from Chad. We bring in beans from Burkina Faso,”she said.

    “We spend over N200billion ($1.1billion) importing rice on an annual basis in Nigeria… and only in Nigeria will people prefer strawberry over mango and watermelon that is locally grown. A kilo of strawberries costs an average of N4,500 – somebody’s salary for a whole week.”

    She said that it is up to young people to revolutionise agriculture in Nigeria and solve its problems.

    “We did a survey and realised the average age of our farmers today is 55 to 60. This means in another 10 years these guys will age and not be able to work. What is going to happen to food production? We have left that sector; we have ignored it completely. It’s about time we begin to think of a revolution in [agriculture] and begin to effect change.

    “And you and I are the people who will effect that change, and the time to act is now,” she said, adding that food production is where the money is.

    Cynthia noted young people often aspire to be doctors and lawyers rather than farmers because they see agriculture as less glamorous, and do not think they can accumulate wealth. However, she emphasised entrepreneurs can be successful in farming, and that she is living proof of this.

    But it has not always been easy sailing for her, and success has come after learning some hard lessons. For example, after the first five years of running her company, and at just age 27, she was bankrupt.

    The 27-year-old lady had lost $150,000. “I had gone bankrupt, and interest was still piling up on some of the funds I’d borrowed from the bank. And then people said I was a failure,” she recalled.

    However, within three years, she had managed to turn the business around and owes this to persistence, hard work, and learning from mistakes. “It has been 10 years of hard work, 10 years of discipline, 10 years of learning and 10 years of preparation,”  she said.

    In spite of her success, she is surprised that not many young people want to enter into farming and agribusiness, adding the sector holds so much potential as everyone needs to eat.

    “Now if the average Nigerian spends N100 ($0.6) per meal, and we are a population of 170million people, my question to you is: Why have we neglected an industry that has the potential of generating N51billion ($300million) on a daily basis? These are numbers you should begin to think about,” she said, adding that opportunities abound across the entire supply and value chain.

    “Nigeria currently sits on over 85 million square hectares of arable land. Guess what, we have barely cultivated 40 per cent of that land mass. It means the potential for engagement is still huge,” said Cynthia.

    However, outside of crop cultivation, she added that there are also other opportunities young entrepreneurs and university graduates should look into, such as distribution and food processing.

    One opportunity is in agricultural machinery and equipment supply. For example, she noted that a minimum of between 50 and 60 tractors are usually needed for every 1,000 hectares of farmland. But in Nigeria there are only about two per 1,000 hectares.

    “So opportunities across the value chain in that sector are so enormous. As young Nigerians it’s time for us to begin to think ‘out of the box’ and see how we can strategically position ourselves across the agricultural value chain.”

    •Culled from www.howwemadeitinafrica.com

  • In search of food sufficiency

    It does not make sense to first kill the people in order to feed them sufficiently

    There is a simple but strong dictum I believe in and it goes thus, ‘when all else fails, eat.’ Well, there must be an awful lot of failures around me for I suddenly find that my pair of bathroom scales has begun to tell lies again. (Sigh!) That’s p-u-speak for saying that I seem to be gaining weight. But, you really cannot believe everything these scales tell you. It’s a little like that joke about a grandmother who told her grandchild that when people die they turn to dust. Well, what does the child do but to look under her bed and conclude that people are dying there because it is full of dust? So, I now wonder, what failures can be causing me to take refuge in the traditional comfort that food provides? Actually, there is a long list. First, there’s government’s failure, then there’s government’s failure, and then there’s more government’s failure.

    Seriously, any average newspaper reader would have come to the conclusion that there is a great deal of government bashing in the press. True, but there is a reason for that; ya see, every blessed thing in this country is woven around the pleasures of the government. Ya want to breathe, beg the government; ya want to eat, tention. What was the government doing about food insufficiency? I learnt the answer in a village. Not too long ago, a complaint came from a village that some people had come asking, nay, telling the people that the government had asked them to take over their entire land to use for planting crops. Were they government officials? No, they were not. Well, we thought it was better to make sure, like; since the government is so powerful here. Well, if they were not officials of the government, what were they?

    As it turned out, they were from the government and they were not from the government. I suppose that makes me sound as dubious as the government. Apparently, in its drive for food sufficiency, the government had desired and secured the involvement of private entrepreneurs willing to invest in farming. This to me is a most excellent idea which I welcome with every breath I’ve got. I still believe that the best way to feed this country with its teeming population is to grow the food within, not bring it from without. For someone as related to the soil as I have been (in more ways than one, obviously), I know it is not only possible, it is fairly easy to do. I also know that the best farmers in this world are not governments; they are individuals willing to bend their backs.

    But that is as good as it goes. It is not a good policy to ask private individuals looking for investment opportunities to go out and help themselves to people’s lands in order to make profit for themselves. If that is what is really on ground, then it stinks for many reasons. Well, there is the fact that villagers are unschooled and unsuspecting people who rely entirely on the government to give them direction and also protect them. Here, however, is the government throwing them to the wolves that are not only devouring the lands but even the people. Now, how fair is that?

    It is possible though that the government did not ask the enterprising individuals to go around seizing people’s lands. It might have asked them to negotiate. However, knowing how sensitive the matters of land can be, and how also very costly lands have become, your enterprising individuals may have found it easier to use federal muscle and might to ease their ways across the land. If indeed this is the case, then the government needs to be wise to the antics of its messengers. It does not make sense to first kill the people in order to feed them sufficiently.

    Let’s face it, the only insurance any helpless group of villagers has is the land. It is God-given, people protected and a sign of independence. This is why entire villages are ever so willing to go to war, fight to the last man or lose all. It is the only thing they have to hand over to their future generations; well, never mind if that future generation does not come. Now, should that generation eventually come, it too must be willing to protect the land in order to hand it over to the next… Honestly, I failed to understand it all before but I think with advancing age, I am getting a glimpse of the reason behind this protective custody that lands enjoy. It is a little like saving for the rainy day.

    True, most pieces of land just seem to sit out their days lazing under the rains, unused, untapped, unspoiled, and uncultivated; but consider, now that they are falling into private hands, whose progenies will they be handed over to: the private developer’s or the villagers’? Then, where does this policy leave the professional, soil-grown, rural farmer who owns much of the land even if he cannot cultivate or farm it? Should he watch on as his land, handed down from many fathers along the line, goes into the hands of his government’s private partners? Seriously?

    Honestly, I think this is a good policy. I have always thought and said that the backbone to any technological drive is agriculture. It not only provides much of the raw materials, it provides the impetus, challenges and adrenalin to invent stuff. However, the policy needs to have been thought through before being implemented. There are just too many questions that need to be answered. I mean, are the village’s lands leased, bought or acquired for this public-private partnership farming? At what point do they cease to be called the village’s properties? More importantly, the immediate challenge of growing so much food at once is where to store the surplus. Does the country possess enough storage facilities that will not malfunction mid-season while holding all our food?

    Now, how did I get to this point? Oh yes, I came out in search of the government’s solution to obesity but I guess I need to comb through the gazettes to find that. Perhaps, I should just stop doubting the official’s insincerity and accept that obesity is not a problem in this country; that fatness, along with the land, has been handed down from our forefathers.