Headline : Leadership failure responsible for food crisis in Nigeria –Nwachukwu

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As an expert in agriculture, how real is the challenge of food insecurity in Nigeria? Truly, there is food insecurity in Nigeria and everyone is aware of it. People are protesting for lack of food. So, nobody can deny that there is food insecurity. It is unfortunate that the country do not produce enough for the citizenry, and even when we produce, it is in insufficient quantity. So, we have food unavailability and those that are available are insufficient. The worst of it is that as a sovereign nation, we don’t have food sovereignty. Food sovereignty is ability to produce your own food the way you like it and the way your people want it. Many nations that are developed and sovereign have achieved this just like clothing. Some nations clothe their citizens in a particular way, using their fabrics. This is what we call sovereign nation and Nigeria has not attained that status. So, there is indeed serious food insecurity in Nigeria.

One will actually wonder why Nigeria is in this situation. What has happened to the researches by the universities and research Institutes? Nigeria has many institutions and Institutes that are based on crops and livestock but despite all that, we do not have that of research results. But research goes with development. If a researcher finishes his work and has a novel idea; if this idea is not funded and commercialized, the society will not benefit from it. It is very important that research development is integrated in every institution, so that every researcher should be able to access fund to develop his or her ideas. That’s the only way we can develop otherwise these research results will end up in the shelves, which is what the situation has been in Nigeria for a long time.

If that is the case; why is there hunger in the land, especially against the background of abundance of land and human resources? Just like we are in the ocean or close to the ocean and you don’t know how to harness the ocean water, you will be thirsty. There is hunger in the land because there is no leadership. Leadership in terms of harnessing human and natural resources and blending them to produce what we need. If the government has the will and focuses attention on supporting agriculture; definitely this very problem will be solved. In all developed climes, you see government focusing on farmers and their activities. Develop crop varieties, hand over to farmers and the farmers that are doing well, you scale up their operations and set targets. Sometimes, they are told not to overproduce and they are paid not to overproduce and when they overproduce they now look for where to go and dump those things. But here, people want to produce, nobody supports them. For instance, in the South-East, have you heard of any commercial garri processing mill owned by the government? You have no such thing, rather you hear of rice and it is individuals that run them. How can staple food that is used by more than 98 per cent of the citizenry not have government support? There is no single garri processing mill except the quasi things that people are doing. And as long as this narrative is not changed, it will continue, hunger will remain in the land. So, we can see that hunger is in the land because there is no leadership direction and there is no political will by people in power to invest in agriculture.

What do you think can be done to get Nigeria out of the situation? The answer is simple. Research results as you mentioned should be commercialized and funded. There should be development as soon as research is carried out: purposeful research, intentional research. We should be able to develop that idea and then commercialize it; set up companies that will buy the idea and then every person will benefit from it. Let me say this: In all developed climes, even in developing countries like South Africa, you see commodity based companies. You see a company that is growing cotton and then you have high-rise buildings/tower, just like Cocoa House. What happened to Cocoa should be replicated for cassava, replicated for yam, banana and potato. There should be value chain for every crop, In fact, no crop from this country should leave the shores of Nigeria without going through a value chain process, so that we maximize the use of that crop and get maximum benefit from it. No nation sends out its products as raw materials except Nigeria and few nations in Africa. That is the way out. I was in Kenya and I saw coffee, coffee industry and then the company that controls the coffee. They have the growers, then the processors, then those who convert it to the final product before it leaves and these are big companies. Every value chain process is a company employing hundreds of thousands of people for a single commodity and they replicate it over 100 or 200 commodities. You will see that agriculture has created jobs for every person. But as long as we continue to sell our products; yams we send out to Europe as tubers, cassava as chips, we are not helping the system.

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