Experts in Nigeria welcome move, say it can even end food scarcity in the country
The United States government recently announced a new Global Food Security Strategy Country Plan for Nigeria. The national programme for food security was launched in August 2001, and it was conceived to stem the high incidence of food scarcity in Nigeria. The programme is located in every senatorial district of Nigeria.
The move connects to US President Joe Biden’s resolve to ensure improved food security in Nigeria, said Melissa Jones, mission director, United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Jones made the disclosure about the new food security plan for Nigeria during the 1st Post-harvest Connect Conference and Exhibition in Abuja.
Specifically, the plan is to improve rice, maize and horticulture in six states: Kaduna, Kano, Nasarawa, Plateau, Sokoto and Zamfara, and to address post-harvest loss, taking into consideration climate adaptation and private sector engagement.
“Building upon the lessons learned from the 2018-2023 Global Food Security Strategy Nigeria Country Plan, the US government is adapting its strategic approach to supporting Nigeria’s food security goals by ensuring a more targeted and effective use of resources,” according to Feed the Future, an initiative launched by the US.
In the context of numerous and mounting challenges facing the Nigerian economy and people, intelligent planning around food security is more important than ever, the officials noted. “Insecurity, characterised by insurgency, kidnapping, and banditry, continues to impede economic activity including farming on which rural Nigerians rely for sustenance and livelihoods.”
Further, climate-related risks such as flooding and drought have begun manifesting in Nigeria, they added. “Severe nationwide flooding in 2022 destroyed crops, farmlands, properties, and lives, and persistent continuing droughts exacerbate farmer-herder tensions.”
Finally, a rapidly depreciating currency and record inflation, caused by sluggish post-COVID recovery, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the immediate effects of recent government reforms, combine with a deficient social protection system to exacerbate poverty and erode purchasing power, the department observed.
Recognising that new shocks are inevitable, the officials added, the 2024-2029 GFSS adopts a market system approach to achieve three overarching goals:
- Increase the productivity and competitiveness of selected value chains (maize, rice and horticulture) and markets by building capacities of agri-businesses, removing barriers to investments and developing innovative financial products,
- Enhance the capacities of vulnerable households to respond to and recuperate from shocks through increased productivity and adaptation, and
- Improve access to nutritious and high-quality food by investing in and training regulatory agencies on food sanitary and phytosanitary measures.
These programmes are underpinned by a pragmatic approach, the US body noted. This includes cascading risks, deployment of innovative techniques and inputs such as drought-tolerant grain crops, ensuring inclusive development by including women, youths and the disabled, leveraging local knowledge and systems in programme design and implementation, and leveraging networks to ensure collective action in line with USAID’s ‘Progress Beyond Programs’, it added. “For instance, USAID can help galvanise programmes like the African Development Bank’s $540 million Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zone initiative through private-sector engagement and collaboration with the host government.”
Garba Sharubutu, executive secretary, Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria, a government agency, observed that Nigerian farmers are focused on yields without giving a thought to post-harvest activities.
Lava Kumar, a virologist and head of germplasm health unit and virology lab at the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), said: “It is a fantastic initiative. USAID has many initiatives to promote food security with their Feed the Future plan. The new plan that was announced recently is mainly focusing on rice, maize and horticulture value chain, as well as prevention of post-harvest losses.”
If the programme works out in Nigeria, it will surely bring relief to the citizens in Nigeria, according to Abiodun Adeloye of the University of Ilorin, north-central Nigeria. “I believe that the Agency (USAID) means what it has said and is fully prepared in the spirit of America.”
Based on the agency’s statement, Adeloye noted that USAID has its indices of assessment of the possibility to implement the programme for success in Nigeria. “It has even identified the state locations that it will want to put its focus on.”
The expert added:
The issue in the programme and its success in Nigeria rests on the Nigerian factor. The Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) needs to come up and play its parts well in the programme. FGN should put aside politics and favouritism, but appoint the right people to positions in the MDAs that are connected with this programme. Such appointments must consider qualifications, expertise, experience and proven successes in extension services, post-harvest activities for food security.
Nigerian Stored Products Research Institute (NSPRI) is directly involved in the programme and so has a great task ahead of it, he highlighted. “The success of the programme rests heavily on NSPRI. A question anyone would want to ask at this point is ‘how prepared is NSPRI?’,” he said, adding that the failure of FGN to fulfill its part of funding has killed certain programmes in agriculture in the past.
So, the FGN must fulfill its counterpart funding if such is required in this programme, the professor stressed. “While USAID is willing to upscale post-harvest solutions to food security in Nigeria, the government of Nigeria and relevant stakeholders should come up to make the programme a success.”
The US government’s Global Food Security Strategy Country Plan for Nigeria highlighted five new or elevated priority areas of emphasis and action, said Abel Babalola Ogunwale, professor of agricultural extension and rural development at the department of agricultural extension and rural development, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology Ogbomoso, Oyo State, southwest Nigeria. The expert shared:
Together, these position Feed the Future to successfully adjust and pivot in a constantly changing global landscape. It focuses on equity and inclusion; an ambitious approach to climate change; proactively countering the COVID-19 pandemic’s long-term effect; integration of conflict mitigation, peace building and social cohesion, and working across the entire food system.
According to Ogunwale, the advantages of this strategy to Nigeria include the following among others: Farmers shall be able to cultivate crops that are marketable and demand, driven to get optimal profits; farmers shall have more food to eat in the family and extra to sell to get farm income; farmers’ standard of living will improve as a result of increased farm income; farmers shall continue to supply farm produce to industry and through this process, encourage backward integration in the country.
“There shall be no shortage or scarcity of food in our rural communities in Nigeria again,” Ogunwale said. The expert also predicted improved collaboration among farmers groups and stronger linkage with agro-industries for steady supply of agricultural raw materials to cottage industries in Nigeria, as a result of the intiative.
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