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Today, the world faces food insecurity, which is the limited access to nutritious food. This global challenge affects about 2.4 billion of the world population.
In Nigeria, food insecurity affects a huge number of the country’s population of over 220 million people. As the country marks its 64th Independence Anniversary, we have an occasion to look at the policies, programmes and projects embarked in Nigeria’s sub-nationals to combat hunger and ensure food security.
Conflicts and insecurity, rising inflation and the impact of the climate change crisis are the major causes of food insecurity in Nigeria.
The Cadre Harmonisé Report launched by the Food and Agricultural Organization, FAO, in collaboration with Nigeria’s Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security in October 2023, projects that over 26.5 million people would face hunger in 2024. This report brings to the fore the enormity of the challenge faced by Nigeria and sub-national governments.
Confronted by this challenge, the governors of the 36 States in Nigeria have responded with strategies tailored at specific agricultural strengths and vulnerabilities of the people.
In the North-western geo-political zone of the country, with vast expanse of arable land, states like Kano, Jigawa, Zamfara, Kebbi, Katsina, Kaduna and Sokoto have focused on bolstering the production of staple crops such as rice, maize, millet and sorghum. Driven by the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, thousands of smallholder farmers have received financial support and inputs to scale up their production.
This has been done through the distribution of agricultural inputs to subsistence farmers, the rehabilitation of Tertiary Irrigation Canals, investments in mechanized farming and the introduction of Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zone programme (SAPZ) facilitated by the African Development Bank, ADB.
In the North-East, governments in Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Bauchi, Gombe and Taraba states have also responded through deliberate interventions and programmes. Central to these interventions are programmes geared towards restoration of farming activities in areas where insurgency displaced people.
There have also been investments in climate-smart agriculture and introduction of drought-resistant crops like cowpeas and millet to adapt to changing weather patterns.
In addition to investments in mechanized agriculture, transforming the sector into a major contributor to the national economy, and development of the agricultural value chain, states in the North-Central region, comprising Benue, Niger, Kwara, Kogi, Nasarawa and Plateau have also focused on improving storage facilities to reduce post-harvest losses. Through public-private partnerships, Benue and Niger states have built modern silos and cold storage facilities, allowing farmers to store crops for extended periods. This initiative has been supported by the CBN and the World Bank’s Agricultural Transformation Agenda, aimed at increasing Nigeria’s food self-sufficiency.
States like Oyo, Ogun, Ekiti, Ondo, Osun and Lagos in the south west are turning to technology to improve agricultural productivity. The governments in these states, in partnership with private tech firms, introduced drone technology for precision farming, allowing farmers to monitor crop health, detect pests and control their spread, and optimize irrigation during dry season.
There has also been aggregation of farmers into clusters to facilitate mechanization; focus on agribusiness, training in modern farming techniques and procurement of processing machines to reduce dependency on food imports in Nigeria.
Similar developments have taken place in states like Edo, Delta, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Bayelsa and Rivers in the South. These states in the coastal areas and aquaculture is key strategy to combat food insecurity. There have been investments in fish farming as an alternative to traditional fishing methods. They also focus on expanding oil palm and cocoa production in partnership with international companies to improve yields and ensure sustainable practices and the provision of raw materials for the required agriculture industries needs to increase production.
In the South-East, which is a rain forest zone known for such crops as cassava, yam as well as palm produce, agriculture is experiencing a renaissance. States in the zone include Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo, where government and private farmers are investing heavily in poultry and cassava farming with Enugu State making local councils specialized in crops for commercial farming and industrial needs.
Despite these successes, flooding along the River Benue, resulting from dams in Nigeria and Cameroon over flooding, that coursed constant threat to food production in the region. To mitigate this, state governments have begun dredging the rivers and building levees to protect farmland from rising water levels.
While Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones face different challenges, from conflict, climate change to infrastructure deficits, each region has developed tailored approaches to combat food insecurity and improve food sufficiency in Nigeria.
As these initiatives continue to evolve, they offer hope that Nigeria can build a more resilient agricultural sector, capable of feeding its growing population, reducing dependence on food importation and ensure food surplus for exports to other African countries.