Recently, a 2024 Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC) placed Nigeria as second, among countries with the highest number of people battling with food insecurity in the world.
The report, which surveyed 59 countries around the world, rated the Democratic Republic of Congo has having the highest number of people facing food insecurity in the world.
Other countries among the top five nations that are faced with food insecurity, according to the report published in April, are Sudan, Afghanistan, and Ethiopia.
The GRFC highlighted conflict, insecurity, economic shocks and extreme weather conditions as major drivers of food insecurity, noting that in 2023, almost 282 million people in 59 countries experienced high levels of acute food insecurity requiring urgent interventions.
According to the report: “a food crisis is a situation where acute food insecurity requires urgent action to protect and save lives and livelihoods at local or national levels and exceeds the local resources and capacities to respond.
“The drivers of food crises are interlinked and mutually reinforcing. Acute food insecurity is rarely driven by a single shock or hazard, but rather by the interaction between shocks and underlying poverty, structural weaknesses, and other vulnerability factors.”
Of the 59 countries analysed, 21 of them are facing food insecurity due to economic shocks buoyed by structural weaknesses; 20 of the cases were due to conflict and insecurity while 18 were on account of extreme weather conditions.
Nigeria, as an agrarian country with over 70.8 million hectares of agricultural land, boasts many smallholder and industrial farmers.
The Foreign Trade report from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in March this year indicated that Nigeria exported agricultural goods worth N1.23 trillion in 2023, a 53% increase from 2022, which was N583.3 billion.
Some of the listed agricultural products exported by Nigeria are cashew nuts, shrimps, ginger, cocoa, palm kernel oil, garlic, and sesame seeds. This is aside from yam and cassava. Yam and cassava are the most important of all the root and tuber crops in the exporting business in the world, and Nigeria is the largest producer and among the exporter of these crops.
Therefore, it beggars believe that Nigeria will continue to rank high among countries with the highest number of persons suffering acute food insecurity. But looking back at the indices for which the global rating was pegged, there will be no over-emphasing that the report may not be far from the truth.
Some food producing regions in Nigeria are plagued with flooding, insecurity, herders-farmers clashes, low crop yield and as well rural-urban drift, which has reduced the quantity of annual agricultural output they should produce to provide enough food for the growing populace.
This was further worsened by the ill-timed fuel subsidy removal last year and the hikes in import duties for commodity goods that farmers and importers used as reason for increasing commodity prices because of the high cost of transportation and import duties.
Though the federal government has rolled out policies and measures to mitigate the food crises, such as direct distribution of palliatives, suspension of import duty on food commodities and other agricultural programmes, NatureNews believes the federal government needs to look inward and consciously address the issues raised in the GRFC report.
By adding Nigeria to a list of food crises-ridden nations, the report is a big dent on the brand image and reputation of Nigeria, which should pride itself as Africa’s food basket.