#Experts: Insecurity Responsible For Nigeria’s Lingering Food Crisis

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.