Food insecurity in Nigeria has become a major pressing issue seeing how malnutrition is prevalent, particularly in the rural area of the country and mostly among children and women. Currently, 17 million people in Nigeria are at risk of food insecurity with a projection to increase to 25.3 million people between June-August 2023 lean season. Rural dwellers account largely for this figure as they are highly vulnerable to chronic food shortages, malnutrition, unbalanced nutrition, erratic food supply, and poor quality foods.
Sani Miko, a lecturer at Bayero University Kano’s (BUK) Agronomy Department in the Faculty of Agriculture, cited some factors causing Nigeria’s lack of food security. He therefore categorized the factors endangering food security in the country into two groups which are internal and external policy challenges. The University Don made these remarks during the annual Ramadan speech in Kano organized by Islamic Forum of Nigeria National Headquarters, where he discussed a paper titled “Policy Challenges To Food Security in Nigeria.”
Agricultural sector has historically received inadequate funding.
In his remarks, inadequate funding for agriculture is one of the many factors hindering Nigeria’s agricultural industry from reaching its full potential. He argued that the existing allocation of resources directed to agricultural development was insufficient to propel the industry forward. The agricultural sector has historically received inadequate funding from both the federal and state governments. Between 2000 – 2007, for instance, the federal government spent 1.3% – 3.4% of its total budget on agriculture.
Subsequently, in 2017 just 1.8% of the entire yearly budget of the federal and state governments was allocated to agriculture. He however pointed out that more resources would be needed in order to accomplish agricultural transformation in the country. Another prominent aspect that is adversely influencing the Nigerian agricultural sector is the threat of climate change for sustainable agriculture. Even so, the policy response to this issue and the necessary interventions to lessen its impact have remained largely ad-hoc.
Notwithstanding CBN intervention farmers still face challenges.
Another key aspect is the increased insecurity of agricultural land and investments today posing risk to agricultural production, processing, marketing, and supply of essential services. Hundreds of agricultural and pastoral communities have seen their livelihoods and investments wiped out by the threat posed by Boko Haram, banditry, and communal, farmers and pastoralists disputes. In addition, is the paucity of affordable and accessible farm equipment including tractors, planters, and harvesters. Also is the inadequate rural infrastructure that has hampered rural areas’ capacity to cultivate and secure farming processes.
With the average of 1 in 10,000 extensions to farmers throughout the nation, Miko also mentioned the problem of poor extension services delivery to farmers in terms of obtaining support and training in technology adoption. Notwithstanding CBN intervention, farmers still face challenges, including a lack of access to affordable credit and excessive interest rates. Another problem is insufficient collaboration between federal and state governments, which stems from inefficient policymaking and execution frameworks inside and across federal Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs). This has fueled ongoing competition between different agencies in the field.
Nigeria must reassess its partnerships with global organizations.
However, Miko argued that it would be difficult for a country like Nigeria to attain food security via internal dynamics alone, given the interrelated nature of international economic linkages. Achieving food security requires a combination of national and international efforts. As such, Nigeria must reassess its partnerships with global, regional, and sub-regional organizations including the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the European Union (EU), and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). It would also include reaching out to nations that may be impacted by Nigeria’s agricultural, food, and economic policies in order to gain their cooperation and understanding.
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Reasons impeding Nigeria food security. – Inadequate funding is one of the factors impeding agricultural sector. – Express your point of view.
Nigeria’s food security issues are multi-faceted, and the solution would require comprehensive approaches and systematic reforms that tackle the various issues. Agricultural, environmental, humanitarian, and political interventions are critical to bolster agriculture and ensure that every Nigerian citizen has adequate access to food.
There are a lot of reasons impeding our food security. We need to first take utmost care of the way we treat food first. There is need for us to also raise awareness on how to eat healthily.
Reasons impeding Nigeria food security. I keep on saying it, we are very strong in agriculture but issue of funding is affecting our agriculture sector. Government is not measuring up. If government support farmers with every recruitment needed, I believe we are going to do very well
Far beyond just funding is the issue of security that should be dealt with if we want to have sufficiency in Agriculture. The activities of Fulani herders, Boko Haram, ISWAP and Banditry have come to climax creating fears within the farming community couple the havoc that has been done on those farmlands. Also inclusive is the lack of readily available farming tools and machines for cultivation. The Federal Government should work on the critical listed areas mentioned above to address the issue food security.
All the cited factors are all true and they have been hindering Nigeria food security efforts. Government needs to lay more emphasis on addressing this factors before taking any further step on this endeavor.
Lack of funding is impending agricultural sector we need to invest in agriculture this is where food we consumer are been produced taken care of our foods is important in other to eat healthy foods something need to be done
The major problem Nigeria is facing and which is a menace is corruption,this thing call corruption has really eating deep and it is still going on.On the agriculture financing in the country,money is been budgeted for the purpose and find out later that the money is been giving to big people in government without any plan of going into agriculture and the most annoying part is that they wouldn’t repay it back.
Since childhood malnutrition is so common in Nigeria and has such negative health effects, insufficient supply of food has emerged as an alarming issue in the country.
To help Nigeria’s agricultural sector flourish, our government should address the issue of insufficient support for agriculture and that will really help.
People are dying everyday as a result of hunger and I hope the government knows all this, especially in the north where millions of children suffer daily and that is very terrible and that should change please.
Agricultural sector requires lot of funding, but we pay little or no attention to the important sectors of our economy. This is what leads to low revenue and high rate of malnutrition in the country
There are several factors responsible for the recent food shortage in the country. In this present administration funds were release for agricultural purposes but the activities of Fulani herdsmen distrupted farming activities. The incessant attacks of Boko Haram, ISWAP and Bandits steered up insecurity among the farmers. Addedum, the current inflation and last year flooding are also responsible for the food insecurity. I strongly believe that if the federal government can stamp out terrorism completely and fund agriculture in partnership with foreign organisation then can they be able to put an end to food insecurity in the land.