Except appropriate measures would be taken, the current increase in the price of food items might plunge more citizens into poverty, the Federal Government warned on Tuesday.
The government, however, said the situation was not peculiar to Nigeria but a global scenario caused by climate change factors.
The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mohammad Abubakar, represented by the Director, Federal Department of Agriculture, Abdullahi Abubakar, raised the fears in Abuja during the opening ceremony of a national workshop on the applications of Juncao Technology and its contribution to the achievement of sustainable agriculture and Sustainable Development Goals in Nigeria.
The workshop was organised by the African Union Development Agency-New Partnership for Africa’s Development, in collaboration with the Division for the SDGs of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs; National Engineering Research Centre for Juncao Technology of the Fujian Agriculture; Forestry University of China and Nigeria’s Ministry of Agriculture.
During the event, the National Coordinator and Chief Executive Officer AUDA-NEPAD Nigeria, Gloria Akobundu, said Nigeria must harness the untapped possibilities in the agricultural sector to tackle the challenge of food insecurity.
She said, although government was doing its best to alleviate poverty in the country, there was real danger of communities being exposed to insecurity, youth restiveness and malnutrition due to the nation’s population of over 200 million people.
Akubundu said deliberate measures had been put in place to forestall these occurrences.
“In my view, one way of doing so is to domesticate the Juncao Technology in Nigeria because it will create direct and indirect jobs, promote Agro Business, enhance nutrition, curb youth restiveness and boost security as youths will be gainfully engaged.
“We are concerned with ensuring food security in and to cushion the effect of COVID-19 towards building long-term resilience for sustainable economic growth and development. The agency’s innovative strengthening of smallholder farmers’ capabilities towards productive land restoration amid Covid-19 was initiated to mitigate the negative impact of the pandemic,” Akubundu said.
The PUNCH reported that the World Poverty Clock, an online tool that provides real-time poverty data across countries, recently revealed that over 70 million Nigerians live in extreme poverty.
The Minister observed that the changing climate had impacted negatively on agricultural production and was likely to challenge food security in the future.
Abubakar said, “Food may become more expensive as climate change mitigation efforts increase energy prices. Water required for food production may become more scarce due to increased crop water use and drought.
“Competition for land may increase as certain areas become climatically unsuitable for production. In addition, extreme weather events, associated with climate change may cause sudden reductions in agricultural productivity, leading to rapid price increases.
“These rising prices may force growing numbers of local people into poverty, providing a sobering demonstration of how the influence of climate change can result in food insecurity.”
He, however, maintained that Nigeria was moving away from over-dependence on oil and diversifying into agriculture for sustenance, income generation and foreign exchange earnings.
Abubakar observed that the Juncao Technology had the potential to boost government’s efforts in making the best use of huge agricultural resources towards sustainable livelihood as enshrined in the SDGs charter.
“Holistic efforts are being made in recent times to address these multi-faceted challenges and unlock the potentials of the Nation’s livestock resources for increased employment opportunity, improved livelihoods and income, and we earnestly look forward to potential leverages the Juncao technology will provide to boost these efforts,” he said.
