…as 84% Nigerians can’t afford healthy diet

…want public, private collaboration to tackle crisis

By Gabriel Ewepu, Abuja

As Nigerians gasp for breathe to keep heads above current food crisis, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, AGRA, Sahel Consulting Agriculture and Nutrition Limited, and others, yesterday, proffered solutions to tackle ravaging food crisis.

Stakeholders converged on Abuja at a conference tagged ‘Sahel Food Systems Changemakers’ with theme ‘Curbing the Nigerian Food Crisis: Ensuring Resilience and Sustainability in the Agribusiness Landscape’, which was organised by Sahel Consulting Agriculture and Nutrition Limited.

The objectives of the Conference include; Identify critical steps to curtailing the food

crisis by taking lessons from Covid19 and the war in Ukraine-Russia; Highlight success factors for developing private sector-led initiatives to drive agribusiness landscape; Highlight emerging solutions and innovative

business models in the agri-food landscape to promote resilience in food systems; Facilitate dialogue between stakeholders on

the urgent need to position private sector-led strategies as a sustainable option for a resilient food system; and develop a clear roadmap for multi-sector

collaborations to curtail the food crisis in Nigeria.

The Vice President Programme Innovation and Delivery, AGRA, Aggie Konde, pointed that insecurity has contributed 30 to 40 per cent to food crisis and hunger hitting Nigerians number. 

Konde said: “When there is insecurity, farmers cannot go to the field, if we do not have land for farmers obviously there is going to be hunger.

“We are meeting here today to see how to overcome some of these challenges through our partners, Sahel Consulting and group of like-minded people  to solve  this crisis.

“We need all the actors in the Agric business, ecosystem to come together and take very practical actions to solve food crisis.”

Speaking further on the sidelines, she emphasized the need for accurate and reliable data, which enables access to data on agric the ecosystem, and how farmers could accessing farm inputs, also data where there is excess production and where there is underproduction.

“We need to know  the bottlenecks that are being faced by farmers all these information needs to be shared.

“AGRA is providing platforms where these information can be shared, and we are also working with other stakeholders that have data. 

“We believe that visibility of data will encourage private sector actors to invest and this will ensure that we have food sufficiency”, She said. 

She also added that the AGRA currently collaborates with the public sector, breeders, researchers to galvanize the sector.

 However, she (Konde) expressed concern and said the need to fast track technology to farmers remains paramount band critical in tackling food crisis, and that requires collaboration with the public sector, agric extension officers, trade officers, and health officers as panacea to what Nigerians are passing through.

Meanwhile, she made it known that African Union, AU, is committed to supporting infrastructure for cross-border trading, which will  allow traders to access markets for agric produce.

“We are working to see how there will be  policies or incentives that allow women traders to participate in the economy, as well as youth to participate in the economy”, she stated.

However, she called on Nigerians to hold leaders seeking political positions accountable for  security, and other, as the saying goes  “if we are all not safe, nobody is safe.” 

Also speaking was Executive Chair, Sahel Consulting agriculture and Nutrition Ltd, Ndidi Nwuneli, made it known that 84 per cent of Nigerians currently cannot afford healthy diet, hence the conference was an opportunity to really get ahead of the food crisis facing Nigerians.

“In fact, we estimated that about 84 per cent of Nigerians cannot afford a healthy diet or even three square meals a day.

“Insecurity, climate change, micro economic challenges, and the recent Ukraine and Russia War are factors affecting  food insecurity.

“This does not affects  only  productivity it affects their children because their children cannot live meaningful lives without food and it will also affect future generations”, Nwuneli said.

Meanwhile, she called for partnership between public and private sectors including  development partners and civil society organizations to share data, resources, and roadmap to curtail the devastating food crisis.

“With the conference, we are going to have actionable roadmap with  multi stakeholders to achieve what we want to achieve for every Nigerian to access affordable food”, she stated.