EFFORTS by successive governments at addressing food security in the country are yet to provide the desired result as over 40 percent of Nigerians do not have sufficient food on daily basis, a university teacher, Professor Babatope Alabadan, has disclosed.
He also said that globally, over 800 million people, including 300 million children, go to bed hungry daily due to food insecurity.
Alabadan who made these assertions yesterday while delivering the 25th inaugural lecture of the Federal University of Technology, Minna, titled, ‘’Housing and Food Security: Now and in the Future- Lessons from the Termites’’, said the three tiers of government in the country must go beyond paying lip service to food security by ensuring that the people have physcial, economic and social access to food, if Vision 20:2020 is to be accomplished.
The professor of Agricultural Engineering blamed the food shortages in the country on huge food losses due to inadequate storage facilities, a development which he said has continued to affect the country’s economy and possess a threat to her national security.
To this end, he said the three tiers of government in the country should embark on mass construction of capacity silos, especially for small scale farmers in order to reduce food losses and increase local supplies.
He lamented that despite the favourable natural condition for food production in the country, food is still being imported into the country to meet up demand because of huge food losses at the expense of the economy of the country.
Enumerating the dangers of food losses to the nation and the world at large, Alabadan stressed that food losses represent a significant cost to the economy and greatly impacts on the nation’s ability to feed the world, emphasising that losses affect food quality and safety, economic development and the environment.
He then urged the federal government to establish agricultural estates and farmsteads in every state and local governments, pointing out that in addition to increasing food production, it will create jobs and reduce poverty, which will be in line with the attainment of the transformation agenda and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
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Forty percent is conservative! Your research is inconclusive. Visit the right places.
ReplyDeleteExpert but you have stylishly help yourself by saying over 40%. Please go back on a serious note to your research, a lot is wrong with that result and is obvious that vehemently 40% is far below. Your result to be conclusive and reflective should at-least read over 90%.
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