Food shortage is a big challenge in Nigeria. There have been instances where people were trampled to death while scrambling for food palliatives. This year’s World Food Day, marked on October 16, 2024, highlighted the urgent need to tackle the problem of food shortage globally. This year’s theme, “Right to Foods for a Better Life and a Better Future – Leave No One Behind,” is apt and highlights the need to ensure that no one is denied the right to food, which is a basic need of man.

In the last few years, food shortage has been a major problem in the world. In its 2022 global report on food crises, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimated that 193 million people in 53 countries needed urgent assistance to access food in 2021. In Afghanistan, for instance, over 34,000 children were reportedly admitted to hospitals with severe malnutrition in 2022. FAO estimates that over 2.8 billion people are reportedly unable to afford healthy diets globally.

Last year, Nigeria was among the 22 countries classified as hunger hot spots in the world. Among these countries, Nigeria, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Somalia and Yemen were at the highest alert level for acute hunger in the world. In the 2022 Global Hunger Index, Nigeria ranked as lowly as 103 out of 121 countries. The North-East region of Nigeria, especially Adamawa, Yobe and Borno states, has over four million citizens on the danger list of food insecurity.         

It is shameful that Nigeria with vast agricultural potential cannot feed her population. The Food Security Update Report, released by the World Bank in September, classified Nigeria as one of 18 countries experiencing a significant rise in the number of people exposed to increasing starvation. Within the past one year, the report noted, the number of people facing acute food shortage in the country increased by 28 per cent.

Incidentally, food was never a problem for Nigeria in the First Republic. Then, agriculture was the mainstay of our economy and the three main regions had healthy competition in food production. There was groundnut pyramid in the North, cocoa in the West and oil in the East. At some point, a country like Malaysia came to borrow palm seedlings from Nigeria. Today, we are nowhere near that Asian country as far as palm oil production is concerned.

The era of crude oil boom contributed in no small measure in turning Nigerians away from agriculture. Almost everybody wanted a piece of the oil money as people abandoned their farms for the more lucrative oil business.

Global conflicts, climate change and the spate of insecurity in the country are contributory factors to food shortage as well. Oftentimes, herdsmen destroy farmlands with their cows and kill many farmers who challenged them. This occurs mainly in the North-Central states such as Plateau and Benue, the food basket of Nigeria. In the North-East and North-West, terrorist groups like Boko Haram are a torn in the flesh of farmers. Sometimes, they either impose taxes on them or kill them for no just reason.

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The ballooning population of Nigeria does not help matters. At over 200 million, the population far outweighs the amount of food available for consumption. The largely subsistent farming our people engage in with crude farm implements cannot solve the food insecurity in the country.

The result is that many people suffer from different illnesses as a result of poor nutrition. Children are the worst hit as they suffer acute malnutrition. This is more prevalent in the North where severe malnutrition is said to have risen by 51 per cent.

We need to grow food at a geometric proportion to feed our rapidly growing population. Big-time farmers should embark on large-scale mechanized farming. Smallholder farmers should also be supported to contribute to the food value chain.

Creditor nations as well as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank should soft-pedal in asking countries to implement harsh reforms that affect the vulnerable members of the society.

The Federal Government should do something fast to arrest the problem of food shortage in the country. It should start by subsidizing farm produce. Giving palliatives as it is wont to do is a cosmetic way of tackling the problem. It is even insulting that Nigerians will have to scramble for as small as 5 kilogrammes of rice in the name of palliative.

Though the present government has assured that the reforms it has embarked upon will bear good fruits tomorrow, people need to eat to be alive. In the interim, government should encourage large importation of food as a stopgap measure. As the Director-General of the FAO, QU Dongyu, put it, there should be a renewed commitment to building more efficient, more inclusive, more resilient and more sustainable agrifood systems that can nourish the world.