Insurgency And Food Insecurity By: Leadership Editors on November 11, 2013 - 4:12am With the extension of emergency rule by six months in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states, the growing fear of food insecurity will come full circle. The crisis of food security has been accentuated by the insurgency in the northeastern parts of the country. In September, this year, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warned that the Sahel states in northern Nigeria were faced with severe food insecurity. The release stated that, “Poor families have used up their food stocks and are facing high food prices awaiting the next harvest.” Today, over 1.4 million children in the region are at risk of severe malnutrition. This is blamed on the insurgency and the growing fears fuelled by lack of stable supply. The price of rice, for instance, has been hitting historic highs of N12, 500 per bag, triggering panic across the country. Persistent increases in the prices of other staple products such as fish, bread, meat, cereals, chicken, yams, onions, beans, vegetable oil, tomatoes and groundnut oil have aggravated the continued woes of the common man. Recently, the deputy comptroller-general of customs (enforcement), Mr Saka Yinusa, said that the country’s smugglers were making a minimum of N1 billion daily on contraband rice. That translates to N365 billion yearly. The loss is not limited to rice. Minister of agriculture and rural development Dr Akinwunmi Adesina had earlier lamented how Nigeria fritters away a whopping N1.3 trillion to import four food items yearly. These include N217 billion on sugar, and N97 billion on fish. The country also spends billions yearly importing sorghum, millet, fruit and other farm produce that could be produced here if the security situation and proper policies had been put in place. In the absence of local paddy production to meet local consumption, neighbouring countries including Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Benin have zero or negligible food duties, thereby acting as conduits for the illegal trade in food importation. This is indefensibly scandalous in a country whose leaders claim to be “vigorously” pursuing “Agriculture Transformation Agenda” and where food items could be sourced locally. Beyond these scandalous expenses and losses, the real fear is that Nigeria is in dire straits and face a crisis of food security as a consequence of poor policies and lip service to agriculture. The human security situation since then has further heightened the food security challenges. Today, 20,000 farmers have been driven from their land by both the insurgency and the military crackdown that got to a peak in May when President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states. According to the Borno State Agriculture Commission, most villages have been cut off from their farmlands by military roadblocks and insurgents increasingly operate in the countryside. In June, the Chad Basin Development Authority reported that 10,000 hectares (24,700 acres) of rice paddy had been abandoned at the peak of harvesting season. The government needs to go back to the drawing board to determine how to replace and reconnect to the immediate post-colonial era where, through good policies, planning and political will, the wheel of the economy was driven through agriculture.
Posted on: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 04:54:21 +0000
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