Experts Proffer Solutions to Food Shortage

By Lanre Omotoso

Agriculturists have proffer solutions to the Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO’s projection that over twenty-five million people in Nigeria will face acute hunger between June and August this year.

A lecturer in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension, Federal University, Oye Ekiti, Professor Raphael Omolehin said Nigerians were not lazy to produce the required food to feed her over two hundred million population.

Professor Omolehin identified climate change, kidnapping, banditry and herders-farmers clashes as reasons why many farmers vacated their farmlands, hence the need for government at various levels to do the needful, so as to overcome the initial prediction.

While stressing that food is one of the basic needs of human beings, which was identified as the second target of SDGs, Professor Omolehin called for the adoption of irrigation farming to produce food all year round.

Similarly, a Retired Director, Farm Settlement and Peasant Farmers Development Program with Ekiti State Ministry of Agriculture, Mr. Patrick Olayemi emphasized the need for citizens to plant crops in their backyards and rear animals to reduce hunger.

Mr. Olayemi also explained that such steps would reduce spending on food items, help to save more money, reduce unemployment and assist the country in overcoming hunger between June and August.

The Retired Director called on the government at various levels to provide capital, storage facilities and establish processing firms to reduce wastage and add value to agricultural crops.

The respondents opined that if prices of fertilizers, agrochemicals, drought-resistant crops, improved seedlings and farm implements were subsidized, it would allow farmers to produce enough food for Nigerians at affordable and cheaper rates.

A quarterly report by the Food and Agriculture Organization, titled “Crop Prospect and Food Situation”, assessed 45 countries to provide insight into the food situation with particular attention on Low-Income Food Deficit Countries.

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