United Nations Development Programme, UNDP, has warned that Nigeria might experience severe food shortage if the federal government fails to introduce urgent intervention measures to boost food production.
Professor Emmanuel Oladipo, lead consultant, UNDP project on “Targeting interventions to foster sustainable and resilient food security in Nigeria,” gave the warning in Abuja in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN.
Oladipo, who expressed regrets that not much attention was being paid to agriculture by the three tiers of government in the country, urged the government to focus on proactive pragmatic efforts at reviving agriculture instead of paying lip service to it.
“There’s a general concern that, if care is not taken, many parts of Nigeria will suffer from severe food insecurity.
“To ensure that food security does not add more to the problems that we already have, the global environment facility is supporting Nigeria to develop and implement food security projects.
“The support is to develop and implement projects in Nigeria, to foster sustainable and resilient food security systems, which means in the area of production, marketing, processing and value-chain.
“The project is sustainable, meaning, it can continue and is resilient, in the sense that it can absorb shocks and bounce back. So, even if there are climatic shocks, the food production system will not be completely wiped out,” the UNDP official said.
Nigerian Pilot Saturday recalls farmers in the Northeast of the country had complained that their farming activities were being curtailed by insurgency in the region, warning that the nation could face food shortage.
They stated that they were unable to go the distance to farm but had to contend themselves with farming within their immediate environment because of lack of security in places where they usually do their farm work.
Meanwhile, Oladipo lamented the current tomato crisis in the country, stating that it could have been averted if adequate proactive measures had been taken.
“It is unfortunate that the tomato issue came up, but it shows, again, that when the land is good to us, a time will come when it might be weak.
“We keep using the land the same way; every time, the same fertiliser is applied; we keep using a lot of bad drainage water to wet the land for tomatoes.
“It is all these, which many people don’t see, that are reacting, creating a lot of fight-back that is allowing tomato pests to destroy the crop.”
He called for an integrated approach in proffering solutions to the tomato crisis in the country, rather than wait for a crisis to develop before struggling to address the problem.
“We have to find a way by which we do things that will ensure that food is always readily available, accessible, affordable, and can be easily utilised by the people. In view of the fact that nearly 90 percent of farmers in Nigeria are small holders, the emphasis is on how to help and empower them enough.
