Africa A key player in food security

In the wake of COVID-19 pandemic, many households have been adversely affected due to the lockdown and the slow economic pace especially in rural communities in developing countries, where the majority are agrarians. In Nigeria, agricultural production activities have slowed down and shrinked as cost of production has geometrically increased. Coupled with the issue of insecurity ravaging several farms in the country, thus farmers abandoning their farms to secure their lives. These contributed to the food inflation we currently experienced which stood at 21.8%.

Sadly, the interventions that have been implemented has achieved little or no result as it was largely a top-down approach (stakeholders consultation done was not widely done).This is a great concern to several stakeholders as there is no help in view and the situation is becoming worse and calls for extremely urgent attention.

In Nigeria, agricultural production activities have slowed down and shrinked as cost of production has geometrically increased.

The government needs to provide palliatives for the smallholder farmers especially in the areas of inputs (seeds, fertilizers and pesticides) for key staple crops to avoid increasing food inflation. Also, we need to restructure the security architecture of the country, specifically regions where agrarians are more concentrated to encourage more farmers returning to the farms. Furthermore, we need to create a social safety net for smallholder farmers to reduce the impact of unpalatable events in the future. Farmers need to have a strong social safety net that provides succor to them in the time of crisis. This would help reduce their vulnerability and economic sabotage.

It is high time we became proactive in ensuring that food security is the concern of all stakeholders and we need to brace up and stand for smallholder farmers to achieve food sufficiency.