Feeding 264m Nigerians by 2030

Gilbert Ekugbe stress the need to boost food production with innovative solutions and smart farming techniques to ensure food security

A recent report by Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) projected Nigeria to add 202 million people between 2018 and 2050 to its current population of 196 million people. Therefore, the urgent need to boost food production with innovative solutions and smart farming techniques cannot be over flogged.

Already, the country is in short supplies to meet its current food demands as the prices of food products are skyrocketing astronomically amid diminishing disposable income of consumers. Farmers have abandoned their farms due to the incessant attacks from herdsmen, impact of climate change on crop yields, land and water shortages.

Moreover, poor and inadequate technologies have continued to ravage the agricultural sector of Nigeria’s economy while the developed economies have prioritised the need to produce more with little resources in their quest to achieve food security.

But Nigeria still has a chance at actualizing its quest for food security in less than a decade if it could investment in digital agriculture

It has been proven that digital agriculture could vastly increase efficiency as well as create new markets and opportunities while also transform farming methods through better decision making, more precise management and automated action through the use of robots and advanced machinery.

It supports the use of ICT and data ecosystems to support the development and delivery of timely, targeted information and services to make farming profitable and sustainable while also delivering safe, nutritious and affordable food for all.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), has acknowledged the possibilities in digital technologies in transforming agriculture and food production. Specifically, in the agriculture and food sector, the spread of mobile technologies, remote sensing services distributed computing are already improving smallholders’ access to information, inputs and markets, increasing production and productivity.

However, the penetration of digital agriculture is weak in Nigeria due to the high level of illiteracy. This has necessitated need for agricultural stakeholders and federal government to educate farmers on digital agriculture by organising massive sensitisation campaign on the impact of digital agriculture in the six geo-political zones in the country to change the perception of farmers, especially rural farmers on the need to embrace digital agriculture as it is practiced in developed economies.
Value-Chain Innovation
Innovations in pre and post harvesting agriculture value chain are very critical to achieving food security in Nigeria. It would have a significant reduction on the N3.5 trillion annual post harvests’ loses due to lack of proper storage facilities and the poor road networks across the country.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic in the country, Nigeria has experienced an unimaginable food loss, threatening food security and increasing the country’s food import bill as imported agricultural goods increased in value by 21.13 per cent in Q3 2020 as against Q2 2020 and 109.82 per cent compared to the corresponding quarter in 2019.

Security Reform

According to the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), the 2021 Appropriation Act (the 2021 Federal Government Budget), allocated N840.56 billion to defence expenditure, far more than any other sector.

In 2020, the Ministry of Defence received N878 billion. In the course of the year, another supplementary budget worth about N983billion was approved for the procurement of equipment for the military and medical infrastructure as well as COVID-19 vaccines. This vote of resources to defence operations show the commitment of the government to making Nigeria a safer and more peaceful nation.

However, despite the efforts of the government on securing the country and maintaining peace, the security situation in the nation is still a narrative of challenges, apprehension, anxiety, disrupted supply chains, and increasing economic cost from the impact of insecurity.

The 2020 Global Peace Index by the Institute of Economics and Peace said the economic impact of violence increased in 2019 to a total of $453.1 billion, or $433 for each person in sub-Saharan Africa.

For the government to achieve better results in tackling insecurity, a key turning point should be to understand the causes of insecurity as well as to investigate the sources of social disorder and instability.

It is necessary to distinguish between different causes as they may require different approaches.

There is also the need for collective and integrative security architecture by the federal, state, and local governments in Nigeria. This arrangement should produce a strong and coordinated presence at village, community, local, state, and federal levels with the responsibility of providing sensitive security information for security agencies in their areas of operation. This will assist in identifying criminals, their sponsors, and hideouts in the country.

There have been calls for open and frank dialogue as a critical factor in addressing the security challenges of the nation, using the media and stakeholders’ forums as catalyst for mutual cooperation among citizens to end the crises and the need for government to sustain the needed funding for defence operations to equip the military with advanced weaponry and intelligence infrastructure. These should be supported by heavy deployment of modern military intelligence technologies.

FG, Stakeholders’ Collaboration

The new Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development must as a matter of urgency strengthen its partnership with agricultural stakeholders to formulate policies to attain food security. There is also a need to carry stakeholders in the agricultural sector to develop a new agricultural policy to replace the defunct Agricultural Promotion Policy (APP).

The new minister must address issues constraining food production with tactical and deliberate investment in the agro sector as agriculture has been identified to be a pivotal mechanism for reducing poverty and fortifying local livelihoods, according to the Director of the Society for Corporate Governance Nigeria, Mr. Tijani Borodo.

Borodo stated the need to engender the principles of good governance structures and related policies at all levels if the agriculture sector is to thrive, adding that in addition to the reforms at national and regional levels of governance, there is also a need for reforms in the global governance of agriculture.