A new United Nations (UN) report has revealed that Nigeria and 17 other countries will witness acute food insecurity. The report refers to these countries as 18 hunger ‘hotspots.’ The report also called for assistance to prevent famine in Gaza and the Sudan as well as the severe hunger crises in Haiti, Mali and South Sudan.
According to the report, “Since the previous edition of the Hunger Hotspots report, the Central African Republic, Lebanon, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Zambia have joined Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Malawi, Somalia and Zimbabwe in the list of hunger hotspots, where acute insecurity is likely to deteriorate further during the outlook period.”
Underscoring the significance of the report, the director-general of the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), QU Dongyu, said, “The daunting prospects highlighted in this report should serve as a wake-up call to all of us. We need to spearhead the shift from responding to crises after they occur to more proactive anticipatory approaches, prevention and resilience building to help vulnerable communities cope with upcoming shocks.”
The food crisis in Nigeria is real and should worry those in government. A recent release by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) showed that the nation’s food imports had hit N3 trillion due to incessant flooding and insecurity. Nigeria spent not less than $2.13 billion on food imports in 2023. The country spent $245.7 million on food imports in January 2023, $163.6 million in February, $268.4 million in March, $240.9 million in April, $238.3 million in May and $4206.1 million in June. It was $58 million in July, $95.3 million in August, $119.9 million in September, $132.4 million in October, $235.9 mliion in November and $126.2 million in December.
Despite having enough arable land for farming and animal husbandry and enough body of waters for fishing, it is sad that Nigeria imports most of its foods, meat and fish from other countries. The discovery of crude oil in commercial quantity and the utter neglect of agriculture have all contributed to our high food imports bill.
There is no doubt that flooding and the general insecurity across the country have contributed to the nation’s food insecurity. With high food imports bills and rising food prices, it is doubtful for Nigeria to eradicate hunger by 2030, which is one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Last month, a market survey showed that the price of a basket of tomatoes rose to N150,000 from its earlier price of N30,000. Also, a basket of pepper moved to N80,000 from N25,000. Currently, a 50kg bag of rice sells for N80,000 and above, depending on the brand, a paint bucket of garri costs N4,000 and a paint bucket of beans is N7,000.
We call on the federal and state governments to come up with new agricultural policies to really revamp the sector that used to be the mainstay of Nigeria’s economy and the biggest employer of labour. The government should support the Nigerian farmers and give them farm inputs, subsidies and other incentives that will make farming look very attractive to young people. Unfortunately, some state governments have been paying lip service to the development of the sector. They should begin to prioritise investment in the agricultural sector and ensure that the nation is food secure. The local government should pay more attention to agriculture and food production. All drivers of food insecurity such as organised violence or conflict, weather extremes and climate change should be quickly tackled by the federal government. Undoubtedly, high food prices and low household purchasing power can exacerbate food insecurity in the country.
Last year, the FAO reported that about 26.5 million Nigerians would be at risk of hunger in 2024. It specifically mentioned that Nigerians in the Federal Capital territory (FCT), Sokoto, Borno and Zamfara states would be most at risk of hunger this year. The prediction may come to pass, if urgent steps are not taken now to ensure that nutritious foods are available and accessible to all Nigerians.
Information from FAO showed that between 691 and 983 million people faced hunger in 2022. Also, as many as 828 million people were affected by hunger in 2021—46 million people more than from a year earlier and 150 million more from 2019. About 2.3 billion people in the world (29.3 per cent) were moderately or severely food insecure in 2021.
And nearly 670 million people (8 per cent of the world’s population) will still be facing hunger in 2030 even if a global economic recovery is taken into consideration. The worldwide support for the food and agricultural sector averaged almost $630 billion a year between 2013 and 2018. Let the government put pragmatic measures in place to avert the looming hunger and food crisis.